


Unnatural

by decaf_kitty



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alpha Hatake Kakashi, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, At the same time, Bottom Umino Iruka, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mutual Pining, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Umino Iruka, Omega Verse, Top Hatake Kakashi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:48:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 49,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23010469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaf_kitty/pseuds/decaf_kitty
Summary: In a world of assertive alphas and authoritative omegas, Kakashi and Iruka have an unnatural relationship, because instead of being instinctively drawn to each other, they feel no hormonal reaction at all, at least not to one another. And yet they are still slowly falling in love.(As flailinginlove once wrote: A/B/O dynamics but without mpreg, dub-con, and rivers of gushing fluids, also trying to avoid overly stereotyped gender roles.)
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 318
Kudos: 853





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my third take of a/b/o (omegaverse). I'm always trying to experiment, so this one is an attempt to make omegas highly selective and powerful and alphas to be assertive but obedient. 
> 
> In addition, I wanted to write Kakashi and Iruka as stereotypical a/b/o subjects to hormone and instinct... but mysteriously not to each other... leading them to find tentative and confusing solace in one another. As they experience hormone-driven sex and very unusual mutual pining at the exact same time, the two fall in love.
> 
> Please enjoy. This should be quite fun!
> 
> (If you want to skip straight to crazy sex, that's Chapter 4~)
> 
> _____

This thing between them – it starts on a sunny day in the market.

Kakashi hears the crowd murmur but ignores it. Just another omega falling to heat. He’s susceptible to it, the potential draw of hormones in the air, so he wills himself to keep walking. If there’s one thing about being an alpha he hates, more. than. anything., it is losing control over himself. Evolution be damned, it makes no sense in the modern day to have the chaos of alphas and omegas, but yet here they are, just as stupid as the body’s unthinking need for sex. 

He doesn’t care about this omega - or any omega – and he never has – and he never will.

But this commotion churns differently. Someone says, with a touch of sadness, “It’s his first time.” Another person calls out, louder, clear, “Is there an omega…? We need another omega.”

Disgruntled, Kakashi deigns to look towards the fallen omega, the one having his first heat. He spots the figure sitting on the dirt, knees drawn up to his face, perky brown ponytail sticking up. 

His mask purposefully covers for pheromones, but he’s beginning to realize something’s off.

Kakashi glances around at the other alphas – most older than him, very few ANBU like him – and he recognizes the standard symptoms of agitation in response to the omega’s appeal. They’re struggling with flushed skin, dilated eyes, restless feet. They’re clenching hands, stopping themselves from seeking out the omega. They’re working teeth together, restraining the urge to bite and mark and claim. It’s all sick and familiar, something Kakashi’s dealt with.

Yet…

Yet he feels none of that right now.

It’s curious, and, before he can stop himself, Kakashi moves through the crowd. He’s close to the front without trying. Everyone else is trying to keep their distance, hoping an omega might arrive to save their brethren from embarrassment or worse. 

Certainly, this is not an omega in heat, it can’t be, there’s…

There’s no pheromones coming off him.

No, this isn’t a -

Then an alpha, badly trained, a civilian, steps forward, her shoulders shaking. She’s eying the omega on the ground; she’s got a strange look on her face. Displeasure rushes from Kakashi’s toes to his throat: that’s the display of an alpha tripping over into rut, nearing total loss of control. 

He _hates_ that look on himself, and, seeing it on her, Kakashi acts instinctively, wanting that off her face and this situation to be over.

He grabs the omega by the arm and yanks upward. The masses react in confusion. He hears an alarmed beta stammer, “Isn’t that an alpha? But he’s acting so –” The rest doesn’t matter, because Kakashi sweeps the collapsed young man into his arms, and he jumps up to the rooftops of Konoha, moving away from the hormone-wrecked crowd.

His speed works in their favor, so when Kakashi stops, there’s no one following them. 

It’s just the two of them.

This omega, the one not in heat… and him.

Kakashi glances down and realizes the omega has nestled his face in Kakashi’s mask-clothed neck. The image instinctively pulls pleasure from somewhere deep within, which makes him internally _seethe_. Keeping his irritation off his masked expression, even more hidden by his headband, Kakashi shifts the omega in his arms, trying to get the man’s attention. It is damn difficult because the omega is _using_ Kakashi, using the alpha pheromones hot under his skin, using them to comfort himself, to calm himself down.

“Where do you live?” he says, fantastically annoyed with everything, all at once. 

It’s stupid, how those people thought this was an omega in heat.

It is not. 

He is not.

But then the man turns his face slightly, and Kakashi sees a deep scar amid a dark blush. He holds still atop the roof as he observes the omega in his arms with increasing wariness. For years before he first presented as an alpha, he’d seen omegas in heat; now he can spot them as easily as he can see shinobi hiding in trees. It doesn’t take a genius like him to notice them, either, considering their very nature revolves around attracting enough alphas to find a suitable mate among the lot.

Where omegas were selective, alphas were assertive, and so the world forever turned. 

Omegas in heat blushed, their eyes dilated, they sweated, they shivered. Depending on the person, they might be alluring and physically pull in possible mates, or they could be passive, waiting and watching those who gathered, assessing and deciding all on their own. As far back as the records went, they were not and never had been a weak caste of creature, just different. 

Of course they struggled with control – just as alphas did.

There is pain and frustration and confusion being an alpha in rut, Kakashi knows that well…

To be an omega in heat, though…

They could be so desperate; they could be _demanding_. In contrast, alphas were more likely to beg on bended knee, biologically accustomed to request and implore willing omegas. The most immature alphas could be brutish and forceful, but omegas, especially ones in heat, they could be utterly fatal and frosty in their refusal, shutting down an approach with a stare. 

Just like sex between betas, there could be issues with consent…

The omega in his arms is in heat, Kakashi understands that now. Their gazes have finally connected: the man’s pupils are blown black, and the sunken scar across his cheeks is surrounded by hormone-flush. His skin shines with sweat, slick but a little glittery. His lips are firmly together as he grits his teeth. His body remains loose in Kakashi’s hold, but…

His stare is so fucking lethal, it makes Kakashi want to drop him to the street below.

It is a truly vicious warning – and so violently instinctive it is almost unreal.

This is an omega in heat.

He vaguely knows this man, now that they are looking at each other. It is - he is - a chūnin a few years younger than him, a survivor of the Nine-Tailed Fox slaughter, a shinobi named Iruka Umino. They have never spoken, and they have not had a mission together. They wouldn’t have, of course, with Kakashi being in ANBU nearly full-time, and Iruka being a standard nin of the village, but… he recognizes the unusual long scar across the man’s face.

He also recognizes this is indeed Iruka’s first heat, because the omega seems especially unsettled with the entire experience, even while falling back on instincts to keep Kakashi at bay.

So Kakashi says again, more neutrally this time, “Where do you live?”

Worry skips over Iruka’s blushing features: he doesn’t seem to want to say. However, he soon swallows and stares at Kakashi’s neck, to where his alpha pheromones naturally emanate.

Very quietly, Iruka answers him in an unsteady voice. The directions are simple enough, plus Kakashi knows Konoha from ANBU patrols and endless time aimlessly wandering the road of life. They are quickly across the village and in front of a two-story apartment complex, where Iruka nods to the upper floor and to the left corner apartment. There are no wards in place, but apparently Iruka is traditional, wanting to avoid civilian burglars, because he shakes out of Kakashi’s embrace and goes halfheartedly searching himself for the keys to his front door.

It is such a pitiful sight, because Iruka keeps having to lean against the wall, mopping away sweat, wincing and squinting down at his pants and his flak jacket, patting them over and over.

Eventually, Kakashi grows fed up with the sad show before him. While this is a very confusing situation, he mostly wants to head out and read his books in peace, so he pushes away the omega’s arms and rummages through Iruka’s clothing. The keys are finally located in Iruka’s pants pocket, the smaller one sewn inside the first, and Kakashi victoriously snaps them into his palm, relieved this is almost over.

Yet as he looks up at Iruka, he begins to realize –

The man is in heat.

And Kakashi has just physically manhandled him near the most intimate of places, an absolute impossibility when an omega has made it potently clear he does not want such contact.

Obviously thrown by how his omega pheromones are _not_ working as they should, Iruka is staring at him with shock and bewilderment and incomprehension swimming about his blush and scar. 

There’s something wrong between them. Now they can both tell it.

As an unmated alpha, single and very much in his prime, Kakashi should be instinctively responding to Iruka’s omega rejection – and yet – and yet he’s not. He just isn’t. Not in the least.

They look at each other for a very long silent moment.

Then Iruka picks out his keys from Kakashi’s palm like he’s plucking a lone little petal from a flower, and he turns around, wobbly and weakening, and he opens his front door after a few tries, and he skeptically studies the unresponsive alpha on his doorstep one last time, and then he –

He shuts the door in Kakashi’s face.

It doesn’t hurt his feelings. After all, he has a book to read - and he has no interest in omegas.

That does not hold true forever because Kakashi is damned like the rest of them. His hormones surge out of control on the next mission, upsetting him deeply inside, but he contains himself. The other ANBU recognize he’s in rut, that his biological instincts are making him look for mates even while on their high-ranked and top-secret mission, but the ANBU don’t intervene. None of them are unbonded omegas, which is fortunate, because Kakashi hates interacting with omegas when he’s not in his right mind. He really would prefer to be left alone during rut, staying behind unshakeable wards and fucking his own fist, but sometimes _this_ happens on missions.

They’ve told him – just get a mate, just court omegas, just seek omegas in heat – and this will all fall in place, into the natural order of things, and you won’t have to worry about tumultuous hormones and random ruts and the devastating pheromones of omegas seeking out partners. 

But Kakashi. does. not. want. that.

He wants control over himself. 

So, like always, he’s willing himself through this ANBU mission. He’s behind porcelain, so they can’t see his blush. He’s clad in full ANBU grey-and-blacks, so it’s restrictive in the right ways. There’s no omegas around, not even on the enemy side, so he doesn’t go dumb uncontrollably.

He waves off the other ANBU when they arrive back in Konoha. They leave him be, knowing what’s happening to him without him having to say it aloud. 

So fucking embarrassing. 

Why. can’t. this. be. simpler.

Just serve the village. Just devote life and death to Konoha. Don’t think about Dad, or Obito, or Rin, or Minato, or Kushina. Think about them some, perhaps, but not all the time. Just – why can’t – why can’t this whole damn thing be –

_Ah, I see._

The very, very faintest whiff of an omega floats by. It is so subtle that Kakashi almost misses it. He realizes that’s it not the cloth mask or ANBU porcelain stopping the smell… It’s just… subtle. In a gruesome flashback, he remembers the corpses of omegas who have stronger pheromones than this, and they dissipate upon death. So this is… it’s almost an impossibility it’s so faint. 

But his rut rides him hard, and he can’t help but be attracted like a moth to a flame.

The omega is on the training fields; he’s covered in sweat, and he’s shirtless. Even from here, it’s clear that this is a shinobi, someone beyond pre-genin and genin, perhaps not jōnin… While Kakashi so just wants to go home and be alone, the deepest most instinctive part of him trills with boundless excitement, sees an opportunity for a mate in this omega, a beautiful strong mate, someone he could be with, now, forever, always, tonight, right this second, right now, right now, right now.

He’s down in the training field, he’s approaching the chūnin omega carefully.

Oh, but then suddenly - he isn’t careful.

He’s caught the omega in a full embrace, he’s shoved his face in the man’s sweaty shoulder. Kakashi’s porcelain mask is in the way, just like the cotton mask underneath, but he’s got a better chance at really absorbing the omega’s pheromones this close to him, and it’s good, it’s so so good, and he’s taking in huge deep breaths, trying to get more of it, and it’s doing the sort of thing that Kakashi has always, always wanted with omegas in that grotesque private way that he shares with no one else – 

He wants an omega to help him be calm, he wants to calm down.

Especially in rut.

The omega is saying something.

Kakashi tries to listen, but… he’s so relieved. The pheromones may be almost nonexistent, but this close, he feels like the chase is nearing its end, if he could only stay a little longer, so then –

“You need to leave me alone,” the omega says in his ear, close to the red lines of the white porcelain. It’s a livid command, and, while Kakashi hears it, he can’t control himself as he holds onto the man even tighter, suddenly very much unwilling to leave and go somewhere else to be alone, he doesn’t want to be alone, he wants to be here, right here, right now.

Then the omega pinches him.

A sharp sting radiates from where the omega twists skin by his armpit.

Kakashi flinches and jerks back his head as the pain smartly cuts away his incoherence.

Iruka Umino is staring back at him… and he is not responding to Kakashi’s rut at all.

Now that… is another impossibility. Just as omegas in heat have the ability to deny alphas any further contact, warding them off in all sorts of ways – alphas in rut do hold a certain appeal, particularly to unmated omegas. There usually is a bit of dance involved, and sometimes it does end up in rough sex, which Kakashi finds both repugnant and thrilling at the very same time. He’s never been so careless as to go for an omega’s neck, but most of them wear collars anyway, so they can even further protect themselves from overly aggressive alphas, those who push the last limits. 

But unmated omegas find him attractive, and Kakashi knows that, and he hates and loves it.

In this present moment, however, Iruka does not find him attractive. Instead, he is looking very pissed and perplexed at Kakashi, who he does not seem to recognize at all.

The man’s _look_ isn’t backed by get-the-fuck-away omega pheromones: it’s just Iruka’s unrestrained annoyance at being abruptly accosted on the training fields by a random ANBU.

It occurs to Kakashi suddenly: 

Iruka thinks this ANBU is a beta… he can’t tell Kakashi is actually an alpha.

Ruts are always confusing, but this is confusing, too, so Kakashi steps away from Iruka, trying to process what’s happening between them. As he does so, he sees the indignant omega stiffen.

“… Kakashi-san?” he asks in a muted, bewildered way, seemingly somehow identifying him.

He’s stupid, his pheromones are making him stupid, Kakashi nods in response, and so with terrific and ridiculous ease he surrenders his ANBU identity to a lower-ranked shinobi he barely knows.

It is Iruka who first says it aloud.

“There’s something between us.” 

As surprise and wonder flood his scarred expression, Iruka is so obviously trying to understand what’s going on, but he’s failing to grasp their utterly impossible interactions, but he does say –

“It’s unnatural.”

Kakashi feels much calmer now, having embraced Iruka, even if he’s still not fully lucid. He repeats the same short nod, affirming the omega’s statement, and then he’s gone, through the training fields and the red rooftops, and then he’s in his jōnin bachelor apartment, and the wards are up and they’re as strong as ever, and this time when he slides his hand over himself, he doesn’t feel nearly as crazy or conflicted or furious at biology and hormones and instincts…

It… feels _unnatural_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please continue to enjoy! I love your comments!!
> 
> ___

They don’t see each other for a year.

It’s absolutely deliberate, them avoiding each other. There’s only one time, when Iruka is trying to finesse his barrier ninjutsu, that he realizes Kakashi is nearby and he can’t properly escape in time. The jōnin is nonchalantly reading a book in his hand, strolling down the path towards the training field that Iruka has started to favor these last few months. It’s a mad scramble to get away from him, so Iruka stumbles at some point. He cringes as he half-falls to the dirt. When he looks back, anxious that Kakashi might be there, might have seen his awkward tumble – 

He sees he’s alone. His noisy misstep alerted Kakashi to his presence. The alpha’s disappeared.

But then they have a mission together, and there’s no getting out of it.

Neither of them say a thing about – about –

Well, about whatever’s between them. 

God, it’s so weird. After his heat and Kakashi’s rut, Iruka visits the library, he ventures into the rare book archives, he asks the eldest people in the village (alphas, betas, omegas, he asks anyone who he thinks might know). Of course, he has no idea what to search for. He doesn’t know how to explain what that was, those two times that they encountered each other.

He starts to think of it as “hormonally dead,” as in - they’re hormonally dead to each other.

It’s morbid, but fuck, their interactions were unnerving, really unnerving. 

There’s a dozen heats between his first and this mission; Iruka never experiences anything remotely like Kakashi’s blank-faced reaction to his defensive omega pheromones. On the third heat, he locks eyes with an alpha woman, who smiles _real slow_ at him and approaches cautiously. They don’t know each other – him and this other chūnin – but it seems interesting. He knows he should try it out, testing an alpha, seeing if she could be an acceptable mate. 

It turns out fine. Even though she’s good to him for those few frantic hours, neither of them feels a spark, so when his heat finishes, they silently go their separate ways. 

The unfortunate thing finally happens on his fifth heat.

Maybe it’s because his parents died years earlier, or maybe the Academy just doesn’t do a good job with sex education, but whatever the case, no one tells him that he’ll become increasingly more wanton as his heats continue without having the security of a partner. As a result, Iruka is suddenly overcome by overwhelming embarrassment at his heat behavior; he’s becoming outrageous, utterly unlike himself. Sometimes it’s occurring in public. Ever since he was a kid, he’s tried to attract attention in the worst ways, hiding his suffering, acting like there’s not stormy sorry dreams at night. So it’s not all that odd to be an omega, spreading pheromones when in heat, seeing what’s out there, if there’s anyone that could be his person for life. 

But.

But _this whole fucking thing_ is horrible, something he finds out during his fifth heat.

Without even thinking it through, without meaning to do so, Iruka entices a jōnin who works for Torture & Interrogation. He steals the man away from his colleagues. They’re abruptly in an alleyway. The alpha is panting, deliriously kissing Iruka’s collared neck, out of his fucking mind. It seems so very normal to start undressing in the shadow of T&I’s secret building until – 

Ibiki Morino appears out of nowhere. The jōnin beta commander of T&I. His scarred expression imitates the fierce daggers that once cut through his skin: it cuts Iruka right to the bone.

Iruka shoves the T&I alpha away and stares down at the dirt in shame.

“Control yourself,” Ibiki commands. 

All at once, Iruka realizes he’s abused his power as an omega. He can’t get home fast enough. 

Ever since that fifth heat, it’s been bad. He tries to keep track of his heats; he stays inside alone. Sometimes there’s a miscalculation – a heat comes early or late – and then Iruka repeats the action of a hundred thousand omegas before him. He hurries home while trying to hold back his pheromones with willpower and ever-slipping chakra control. The dreadful experience leads to him shutting down several alphas in the streets of Konoha over the next six months: he’s actually surprised when his glare works on them… since it didn’t work at all on Kakashi Hatake.

… maybe it’s the Sharingan? But Kakashi wasn’t using the Sharingan, so…?

No one can answer him. They don’t even seem to understand what he’s talking about.

Of course, he doesn’t name names. Iruka just asks, ‘Do omegas affect all alphas?’ or some variation of that question. The declaration is always the same: yes, the two sexes are instinctively connected. They’re designed by evolutionary biology to fit perfectly together. 

It’s uncomfortable, him and Kakashi on this mission, but neither of them is hormonally wild.

Three years have passed since he made chūnin, and a year since he presented an omega. Iruka is eighteen now, he really should have more of this under control. Frustration rumbles over him while working alongside Kakashi, because it’s so obvious the alpha really did make jōnin at twelve. He’s definitely an ANBU, that wasn’t a hallucination. Power comes effortlessly to Kakashi, perfection pours through his every movement. The man’s laziness is an exasperating façade... he’s frightfully aware of his surroundings, that much is obvious. More than once on their mission, Kakashi adjusts soundlessly for Iruka’s fatigue and faults without even looking over at him. He’s just so stupidly sensitive to Iruka, he’s keenly observant, he’s ridiculously talented. 

It’s literally maddening.

They are ambushed on the road.

Suddenly, Kakashi is gone, leaving Iruka alone. It’s stunning, how quick it all happened. He looks around, wondering where the three enemy shinobi went. Then he realizes Kakashi’s tricked them into thinking they’re both in the forest, trying to allow Iruka a moment to breathe. The fighting was fierce in those few seconds, but, still, Iruka is surprised to find he’s bleeding from his side. He was wounded without even realizing it, the enemy was so swift and deadly.

Shit. He’s… he’s out-classed. Not just by Kakashi, but by the enemy shinobi. 

Making it to the woodline, Iruka crouches down and checks his wound. It’s not bad, a glancing blow. He’s missing several kunai, he must have thrown them but can’t remember doing so. Sweat runs down his throat and catches on his collar. Desperately trying to track Kakashi and their opponents, Iruka confronts the terrible realization: he can’t locate the four nin at all.

_Shit, shit, shit._

It’s only a minute later when a brawny nin discovers him.

They exchange body blows; Iruka spits up blood. Fear is _far_ from his mind. Instead, shame burns his scarred features, because he keeps thinking about how he’s screwing over Kakashi. Yes, he’s failing Konoha, but, worse than that, he’s failing Kakashi, who’d just an hour ago tossed him a ration bar, somehow recognizing that Iruka was feeling a tiny bit hungry.

He’s suddenly glowering at the enemy shinobi, who… who…

The man pauses and straightens, looking at Iruka with more interest.

_Oh._

This is an alpha. He’s just noticed Iruka’s collar. He realizes Iruka is an omega. They’re staring at each other as the fast-moving violence morphs into something stranger, something older. Bizarrely, the enemy is more than a bit intrigued, ignores Iruka’s defensive stance: his hazel eyes dilate, and he rolls his shoulders back, showing off thick muscles under tight black armor. 

This… has never happened before.

_**Oh no.** _

Iruka’s omega instincts are kicking in, seeing the alpha’s interested display. He tries to shake it away, but hormones run hot and ruinous through his veins, and his mouth goes dry, so so dry. As blood seeps from his side, Iruka’s brain shifts back into an ancient mode, assessing the alpha. His primitive unconscious is working hastily, taking in a million different things, running simulations of the two of them together. He’s not taken aback by the sight. He’s… just taken. 

Kakashi shoves a lightning-encased arm through the alpha’s spine, bursting open his sternum.

The jōnin shakes his gloved fist, casting off the last bit of electricity, and puts both hands in his pockets. Blood splatter stains his flak jacket in several places; he’s got signs of gory death on both sleeves. His Sharingan is open and considering Iruka, but Kakashi’s expression is empty.

Iruka’s instincts fall into confusion as he looks at Kakashi. He can feel them stutter – then stop.

But he’s still ferociously ready for… 

A heavy blush floods his face, because he’s suddenly realizing he’s aroused.

Kakashi glances _very deliberately_ at the woods behind Iruka, then turns partially away, staring off into the distance with not the least bit emotion on his half-revealed face.

 _Shit, shit, shit, **shit**_.

He limps awkwardly to the woods and glares down at the outline of his cock straining against his pants. How could he be more shameful. Just how. It’s impossible. Absolutely. Impossible. The _insane_ thing is that the enemy alpha seems to have been an appealing match to some hard-wired part of his ridiculous omega instincts, because all of his normal techniques to lessen his arousal –

They’re not working.

Scrunching his face together in shame, Iruka bangs the back of his head against the tree.

At the same time, he’s opening his pants, and he touches himself experimentally. 

_Ah. Ah, fuck._

That’s what he needs. How fucking embarrassing. How. Fucking. Embarrassing.

Just get it over with.

Iruka puts his fist up to his mouth, he bites down on the back of his hand. He takes himself dry, just wants to get this over with. Ugh, it feels good, fuck, fuck being an omega, this is horrible. He doesn’t even know that alpha, he doesn’t want to be with – a corpse now. How is this – Why is this – 

Kakashi Hatake is right behind him, he’s waiting for him, his savior’s standing in the road.

He bites down hard, muffling a needy whimper.

No. 

No, Kakashi didn’t respond to Iruka before. He won’t now. He doesn’t feel anything towards –

But Iruka’s hand is moving faster now, wondering about it, wondering if Kakashi might beg him all breathy, or maybe he’d offer himself boldly, and how would Kakashi’s leanly muscular body feel against his own, and would he push Iruka down with strong glorious arms and slowly spread Iruka’s thighs open and pull down his blue mask and reveal a sly satisfied smile.

The whimper becomes strangled. Iruka’s eyes roll back as he tightens around his weeping cock.

Would Kakashi –

Would Kakashi touch him like this?

He comes with a gasp against the back of his hand.

It’s horrifically embarrassing. There’s nothing left to do, though. Their mission is over: Kakashi completed it for them. He’s killed three rival shinobi. He’s saved Iruka, saying nothing about it. They walk back to Konoha in silence. Without announcing anything, Iruka makes it clear he’ll write the report and turn in it by himself. That seems fine to Kakashi, who is blood-stained and in need of a shower and change of clothes.

They separate.

That night, Iruka shoves his face into a pillow and _screams_.

Weeks go by, but the shame of it doesn’t lessen. Undoubtedly, he’s nearly cost Konoha a mission by being an unbonded omega. Increasingly, he’s thinking about staying within the village and becoming a teacher. A few of his friends suggest idly, not seeming to take Iruka’s concerns seriously, that he just go out and find a sex partner, reminding him that those aren’t permanent, they can break off their pairing anytime, that he doesn’t have to find his mate.

But Iruka remembers…

The Sharingan spinning red and black.

White-blue lightning evaporating blood and bone.

He can’t shake it. He just won’t risk Konoha. 

A month later, Iruka steels himself to speak to the Hokage about his idea. The plan is all in place; he’s resolved himself to take responsibility. His heat after the mission wasn’t so bad, but he doesn’t really remember it, spending it alone and staring at the ceiling while doing himself. That’s how it’s going to be now. He’ll be alone inside the village. He’ll be careful. He won’t embarrass – 

“Kakashi-san?” he says, astonished.

Behind an old house by the Hokage Tower, there is a small vegetable garden that Iruka always surveys with interest, checking what’ll be at the market soon, thinking maybe he should try to learn to cook. It’s a nice reminder of the changing seasons, and the passage of time, and Kakashi is crouched in the middle of the carrots, his masked face stuck in the crook of his arm which is resting on his knees.

Iruka walks straight up to him, totally thrown to see him.

He tries again. “Kakashi-san?” 

But there’s no response, and suddenly Iruka’s incredibly worried something’s wrong. He crouches down, knowingly replicating the jōnin’s position, and he reaches out, and –

Kakashi looks up at him before Iruka can touch the man’s arm.

_Oh._

… He’s in rut. 

Although Iruka doesn’t associate hormones with Kakashi, he knows the _look_ on the visible quarter of the alpha’s face. _That_ is rut: the instinctive search for an omega mate, the parallel hormonal push to his own stupid embarrassing heat. Kakashi’s headband is lowered over the Sharingan, and his mask is up over his nose, so everything seems the same as always. 

However, Kakashi’s grey eye is fixated on Iruka, like when he was wearing the ANBU mask.

Shivers break out across Iruka’s skin… not because of an instinctive response, but because…

_He needs my help._

Compassion inspires courage, and so Iruka draws Kakashi’s arm forward, urging him closer. 

It’s enough, apparently, the very little he’s just done, because…

Kakashi falls forward on his knees, embracing Iruka immediately. His mostly-covered face presses directly against Iruka’s neck, to the spot normally covered by a collar, where his omega pheromones are the strongest, the very same place Kakashi sought last time when dressed as ANBU. Feeling safe within the village, nowhere near his heat, Iruka isn’t wearing a collar. So, Kakashi is breathing deeply again, but this time there’s no pretty porcelain in the way, it’s just thin cloth between them, and Iruka can _feel_ Kakashi’s inhale, he can _feel_ the exhale, the repetition of it becoming ritualistic. 

Like before, the alpha’s hands run up Iruka’s lower back. Seemingly displeased that layers of cloth are stopping him from touching skin, Kakashi pulls at Iruka’s shirt and jacket until his fingernails are scratching Iruka’s bare back, surreally keeping the same rhythm of his breathing. 

It’s… so unnatural.

He feels no primal response to Kakashi.

He should: the alpha is clearly rolling in rut. He’s instinctively seeking an omega’s embrace; he’s unabashedly using Iruka’s pheromones to calm himself down from hormonal confusion. 

As Iruka looks down at the legendary jōnin, he sees the man – talented, strong – a genius – his protector – that the alpha’s tremor is slowly easing, but he’s still unstable on his knees, he’s still hormone-drunk, desperately breathing against Iruka’s bare neck, clutching his back, so…

So, Iruka lifts his hand and strokes Kakashi’s hair.

The alpha _sighs_ softly into his shoulder.

It’s not an omega reaction, but, still…

Repressing a full-body shiver, Iruka squeezes his eyes shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler: Things suddenly escalate next chapter...


	3. Chapter 3

They meet again when Iruka is in heat. 

It’s four months after Kakashi kills Iruka’s suitor in the road. 

It’s three months after he sighed into Iruka’s embrace. 

It’s two months after Kakashi hears Iruka’s become an Academy teacher. 

It happens after a month of Kakashi killing shinobi far away from Konoha. He’s accompanied by another jōnin who is also ANBU, a recently single alpha. Her partner died several weeks back; the two had decided not to be mates, knowing death would come sooner rather than later. The entire purpose of her and Kakashi’s mission is to exterminate distant threats to the village. As expected, they do so efficiently. There is the issue of ruts for both of them, but Kakashi firmly wills himself through his by stalwartly sitting in a tree for those few unpleasant hours. 

However, when his ANBU teammate tilts over into her rut, she’s agitated, she’s blurry-minded. He watches her in silent disappointment – because, like most alphas, she eventually loses it. She can’t control herself; she goes searching for a mate. Of course, she only finds people they’re supposed to kill. As usual, Kakashi takes the lead in these situations. Just as he’s done innumerable times before, he ends up interrupting a courtship display. Her potential mate is dead at their feet. She looks up at Kakashi through porcelain eyeholes, breathing hard, catching what she’s done, what she did not do, then she slowly bows her head to him in apology.

It’s fine. 

It really is.

Because, secretly, Kakashi is dogged by a similar distorted sense of shame. He’s not talking to anyone about it, not even Gai… but he keeps thinking about Iruka Umino, the omega who he doesn’t respond to, the one he can’t provoke. 

Haunted is a choice word: Iruka is haunting him. His rut, spent alone in a tree, swirls about as hormonal hell, all circling around the chūnin omega. Normally, Kakashi doesn’t worry about his omega teammates and their sensitivities to alpha enemy. He just intervenes if ancient instincts overwhelm shinobi training. That’s it. No discussion needed. Just doing his job.

Yet…

Yet now Kakashi is filled with something new.

_Jealousy._

The alpha in the road presented himself to Iruka as a possibility, and… Iruka considered it.

Red-hot fire as strong as any jutsu rushes through his insides as he thinks about it. He’s covered in blood, he’s murdered two shinobi, he’s looking for the last one. Chakra exhaustion caresses his skin and weighs down his every movement. It doesn’t matter: he saw how Iruka struggled. The chūnin can’t beat these nin. Their mission details were wrong, it should be higher ranked.

Doesn’t matter. Find Iruka. Make sure he survives.

Then there’s the alpha, who’s bloodied Iruka, audaciously putting himself on display, and, unbelievably, the Konoha omega is eye-fucking the enemy while bruised and battered. At first, it seems calculating, but it becomes clear it’s not as Iruka shakes his head in frustration, trying to disrupt deeply ingrained instincts.

But the magnetism between those two… it’s as biological and automated as breathing.

Emotion crashes into him as he sparks the Chidori. When he slides his hands back in his pockets only a moment later, his brain supplies the name for the sick stomach-clenching disturbance. 

_**Jealousy.**_

It only worsens when he notices Iruka is aroused. 

What happens next… Kakashi has thought about every rut since.

Obviously Iruka goes to take care of his needs, but somehow Kakashi hadn’t considered what that might mean, at least not for him. He doesn’t care about omegas. He sympathizes, but it’s like how he sympathizes when fellow alpha aren’t able to think rationally on a mission. It doesn’t bother him so long as they can complete their task and successfully serve the village. 

_Iruka whimpers._

Kakashi turns his head and _stares_ at the forest. His blood boils. Adrenaline from battle mixes badly with victory high and jealousy from Iruka’s hormonal attraction to the other alpha. He hasn’t dropped down his headband. The Sharingan is still running wild. It maliciously memorizes Iruka’s next whimper, sinks it in deep into his psyche, saves the sound for all time. 

He doesn’t understand himself as he thinks in a hot-blooded daze, _Should I…?_

Wait… Should I – do what?

It’s so foreign, the desire to help out an omega in heat, that Kakashi bristles in revulsion.

He’s about to shove down the hitai-ate over the Sharingan when _Iruka gasps_.

The sound goes straight to his cock.

… Kakashi replays it every rut, the omega’s angry desperate wanton gasp. 

It’s fucking torture. He keeps thinking about it, how the dead alpha made Iruka gasp like that. He can’t do anything like that with Iruka, because of whatever’s happening between them. He’s just… He’s just nothing to Iruka. He can’t do a thing for the man. Instead, so horribly, so very horribly, it seems like _he’s_ the one who needs Iruka, _he’s_ the one who needs comfort.

The time in the garden when Kakashi trips off the rooftop and lands awkwardly, he’s thinking about Iruka Umino, that single pissed-off gasp of pure pleasure, he wishes he could cause that, but he can’t get a read on the chūnin, he’s not a beta, he’s an alpha, but he feels like _nothing_ with Iruka, and it’s killing him, the inability to do something, be something, and –

Iruka is in front of him.

Kakashi stares at him, wondering if he somehow summoned the omega.

Gentle and good, Iruka extends a hand to him, and Kakashi’s an embarrassed, despondent clusterfuck of an alpha and a man and shinobi, so he falls into the embrace and he wants to live there, stay there forever, stay safe in the delicate omega smell, stay with Iruka and never let him be stolen away, stay in this garden and just be himself, not this primitive stumbling mess.

Iruka pets his hair, and Kakashi thinks he might die.

Three months later, he and his ANBU partner return to the village; he’s expecting a report to the Hokage, then a hot shower, then sleep for days. Yet his alpha companion stalls as they flit across the rooftops. She sweeps backward and looks startled. Kakashi follows her, not understanding the shift and trying to track it down without conversation. Nonetheless, he can’t identify what’s going on. Nothing seems amiss. No enemy. No screeching hormonal disorder.

He signs in ANBU hand-code his question, and his teammate jerks her head towards a building.

“I think I’ll see if he wants company,” she says, her voice rocking almost imperceptibly.

Kakashi stares at her through porcelain, not following her meaning. There’s nothing happening here. There’s no omega in heat. It’s peculiar, though. He knows her well enough, knows what she’s like: she’d only have that little wobble to her if she was being affected by...

Then he realizes: This is Iruka’s apartment. She’s looking at Iruka’s apartment.

Kakashi hears himself say with the flat finality of an ANBU superior: “Report to the Hokage.”

Then he drops down to the side-roof, opens Iruka’s bedroom window, and walks inside. Self-awareness demands he remove his shoes, putting them aside, and raise wards from the inside. Even though he can’t sense that Iruka is in heat, he trusts his ANBU teammate: this is the _unnatural_ thing between them, preventing him from recognizing raging omega pheromones. If she could tell, then other alphas could too… so Kakashi strengthens the wards as he navigates the unfamiliar apartment. He’s straining to hear any sounds; he thinks about removing his masks to improve his sense of smell, but… no, that won’t work, not with Iruka.

An angry sigh comes from down the hall.

Kakashi steps around the corner, peers down the corridor.

Iruka hasn’t made it far: he must have been showering when his heat hit. Instead of meandering back to the bedroom, the chūnin only got as far as the hallway before sliding down the wall and sitting on the floor, his naked legs splayed out before him. Apparently unafraid of crowds or strangers like he was during his first heat, Iruka is relaxed at home. He’s nude and dripping water from the shower, but he’s full-on glowering at the wood floor beside his right hand. 

From this distance, Kakashi can see Iruka’s body’s readying for sex. He’s hard. He’s wet.

What is this thing between them? He should have noticed Iruka before now. This should be making him crazy, make him lose himself in incoherent lustful obedience. This should dissolve his sense of self, cause him to debase himself, act like a drunk falling apart at the seams.

But instead...

Kakashi removes his ANBU mask, holds it to his chest, and audibly clears his throat.

Iruka turns to look at him in slow motion.

Instantly, the omega’s face, scar and all, fills with a dark burning red. Shame hits Iruka so viciously that Kakashi feels himself caught up in it. It’s so bad that he thinks briefly about leaving, but, no... he won't abandon a comrade. Still, the omega’s pain at being seen during his heat, being seen like this, plunges Kakashi into his own familiar nightmare. He can relate to it all too well. He’s wanted to hide away during many of his ruts. The one time that Gai saw it happening – the memory still scorches Kakashi, seeing shock rush over his friend… so soon followed by truly devastating pity. 

Awful blushing embarrassment had roared over Kakashi in response. Ever since, he’s avoided people during ruts, he can’t stand anyone witnessing him, seeing their surprise at his lewdly impulsive behavior, his own repulsed reaction of why. must. this. happen. why. why. why.

The same humiliation now saturates Iruka’s scarred features. Their eye contact is absolutely horrid, but Kakashi can’t look away. He schools his half-masked face to be unreadable. The Sharingan remains hidden by his headband, but his ANBU uniform emanates dark danger. 

Yet Iruka is not scared of the sight of ANBU, nor does he think it’s genjutsu of some kind.

He clearly recognizes it’s Kakashi, the alpha who doesn’t answer to his charms, who doesn’t recognize his rejection.

Off in the distance, Kakashi swears he can hear Iruka’s whimper from the woods, stifled but wanting… He swallows down the memory, his cloth mask clinging to his throat as he does so. 

The omega is pure intensity staring at him down the hallway. He hasn’t moved otherwise; his body is on painful full display, all that smooth brown skin, those sinfully evident signs of sex. Yet shame continuously swells through Iruka’s expression like a tsunami of violence, ever-rising. The bare muscles of shoulders ripple, his fingers shake as he draws them up tight into his palm. 

The man’s dark eyes narrow as his stare pours power into the space between them. He may be nude, in heat, losing himself to hormones, but… Iruka can still make rational decisions, he’s still alert and able to cast out Kakashi, maybe not with his omega pheromones, but they both know Kakashi will leave if…

… if he’s not wanted.

He watches, his heart pounding, as Iruka finally raises his chin, his decision made.

In such a stirringly powerful and wretchedly piteous way…

Iruka appeals to Kakashi.

He almost can’t be heard as he says, his scarred expression trembling:

_“Help me through this.”_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy~ and know I always love your comments!
> 
> ____

This isn’t a dream. It’s a fucking nightmare. 

Iruka can’t control his heartbeat as he watches Kakashi take off his grey ANBU jacket. He knows that if he tried to move, he’d even further humiliate himself, so he remains sitting against the wall. The decision, however, only flusters him further: now he’s forced to witness Kakashi approach him. 

_This_ has been on his mind for months – how might Kakashi act during Iruka’s heat? 

He got it so fucking wrong. He thought, oh, maybe the man will beg, or offer himself, staying still. God, no. No, Kakashi Hatake is merciless in his serene stride. The alpha – and he _is_ an alpha, even if he’s so damn logical right now, his one eye sober, his movements perfect – the alpha strolls the distance between them as if he’s lazily wandering the village, reading his favorite book. 

He’s looking at Iruka with an expression so concealed, it’s just impossible to tell –

He can’t tell what the fuck Kakashi is thinking. 

It’s unnerving, it’s making Iruka squirm. Discomfort sinks past his skin into his bones. This is a bad idea, they shouldn’t be doing this, this thing between them is creating something new, something that shouldn’t happen between alphas and omegas who should always, _always_ fall into crazy lust over each other, this isn’t that, Kakashi is too cogent, he’s able to see, really _see_ Iruka right now, and, and, and –

_Don’t judge me. Please. Don’t._

Iruka can feel his scar twisting across his nose and cheeks; he’s scrunching up his face, trying to hold back tears. Whether or not Kakashi can identify what’s strangling Iruka, it’s not clear, but the alpha kneels before him so very carefully that it seems like a religious display at a mountain shrine. The ANBU outfit, without its white-and-red ceramic mask and grey armor jacket, is absurdly attractive. The sleeveless black shirt leaves nothing to the imagination, and right now Iruka’s imagination is so hot and wild, but he doesn’t need to wonder about Kakashi’s beautiful chest and abdominal muscles, _he can see them through the shirt._ His gaze is so stupidly drawn down to Kakashi’s pants, he’s wanting to know what ANBU wear underneath black cloth, is it grey or black or nothing at all?

He nearly startles out of his skin when Kakashi’s gloved hand suddenly slides up the length of leg. This ANBU glove is different from Kakashi’s usual style: it’s thicker material with a similar metal panel on top, and a grey armguard stretches up from the jōnin’s wrists to his elbows. As with the black shirt and pants, Kakashi doesn’t seem concerned about removing his armguards as he slowly begins to explore Iruka. 

Hell, the man isn’t even undoing the white bandages wrapped around his leg, the ones shinobi wear around their right thigh.

Dazed, disoriented, Iruka finds he’s staring there, at the sterile white cloth, as Kakashi’s armored hand clenches down on the thick of his bare thigh. 

The alpha’s other hand mirrors his first, and then he pulls Iruka forward, spreading him open in the very same motion. Somehow, suddenly, Iruka’s bare back is on the wood floor, he’s gazing up at the ceiling, he can feel Kakashi kneading his tense thigh muscles, trying to get him to relax. It’s so hard, though, and not because _he’s actually so hard_ , but because this is just shameful, being –

Being like this.

In front of Kakashi Hatake.

_Ah, fuck, don’t – don’t you dare cry._

He can’t interest Kakashi. This is because of pity. It’s just like how Kakashi saved him during his first heat. It’s just like months ago when Iruka couldn’t handle the mission, when he was swept away by that disgusting enemy alpha - a moronic omega desperate and dumb for a mate. It’s just – 

It’s just so fucking unfair.

Feeling choked by mortification, Iruka covers his eyes with his arm and tries to forget he’s such a pathetic shameless sight.

Then – 

Kakashi’s _bare_ fingers touch him there, testing him out. The sensation spins Iruka from loathsome self-hatred to frantic arousal in less than a second: he jolts upright and starts to grab Kakashi’s masked face, throwing himself into a full fantastic kiss, their first kiss. But - _shit!_ \- he realizes what he’s about to do, sees incredibly up-close how Kakashi’s grey eye widens in surprise and his silver eyebrow raises up high beside his headband covering the Sharingan. 

Yet before Iruka can hide his face again, Kakashi sits up slightly, opens the front of his pants, and –

Iruka’s obsessive eyes drop to his prize.

_Oh._

_**Oh yes.** _

He wants that inside him now. His breath won’t come out right. He’s sweating everywhere, he’s wet between his thighs, he’s so dazzlingly hard. He’s terrified to touch Kakashi – the alpha never ever responds to him, but _that’s_ definitely a hard cock, nice and big and thick, so maybe – maybe –

Kakashi hauls Iruka up his knees, landing him on his back again. The jōnin’s strong, deliciously strong, and Iruka wants to surrender to it, and – and – God, he does, lets Kakashi do what he wants, lets him use Iruka like the wanton little omega that he is. It’s humiliating, but fuck it, this already feels different, bizarre and weird and different, so Iruka covers his eyes again with his arm and waits.

Apparently, what Kakashi wants is to _fuck_ Iruka using freakish otherworldly strength.

The lack of foreplay isn’t surprising, Iruka doesn’t want any either, he just wants – he just needs –

_This. This is what I -_

Kakashi suits him perfectly, fills him right up, makes him burn so good. The jōnin’s hands hold Iruka with such force, there’s no way it won’t leave marks, but that seems sinisterly delightful now. 

Yes, please - leave a mark on me. 

Maybe -

Maybe I can leave one on you?

It’s hard to think, though - think of anything. His heat has him dizzy, the ceiling’s spinning overhead. The wood seems fluid under his fingertips like he could mold it like a jutsu. His back should be hurting when Kakashi thrusts into him, shoving him across the floor, each time, every time, but instead, it provides stability and surety, the wood his foundation, the wood his only lifeline. 

Kakashi is so silent, it’s sickening. 

Oh, but Iruka isn’t at all quiet: he can hear himself so very well. He’s all whimpers – those damn omega whimpers – defiant desperate sounds rebelling against shinobi restraint – they flood his apartment, they bounce off Kakashi’s wards. He’s holding onto the floor with one hand, but the other is hard and harsh over his scarred face. He realizes he’s dropped his forearm to his mouth, because he sinks his teeth into his own flesh, trying to keep himself from fucking whimpering so much.

God, don’t –

Don’t judge me, Kakashi.

Thankfully, the alpha seems focused on his mission: he’s fucking the dignity right out of Iruka. His pace is brutally relentless, never pulling all the way out, always pushing in as far as he can. Both his hands are on Iruka’s legs, keeping him lifted upright against Kakashi’s bent knees still clad in his ANBU blacks. Every once and a while, Iruka can feel those pristine white bandages running underneath his one thigh, stumbling along the curve of his ass: he’s flushed for a thousand reasons, most of them saturated with sex, but one reason is that he’s ruining that white cloth, he’s dripping sweat and slick from his heat and being fucked, in that sick way he’s affecting Kakashi, he really is –

It doesn’t occur to him to touch himself.

Neither of them –

Neither of them touch Iruka.

So it’s surprising as fuck when Iruka starts to feel something rioting within him. 

He can’t identify it, Kakashi is still pounding down into him so damn soundlessly, ah, fuck – ah – _wait_ \- is this – this is - !

“I’m coming,” Iruka gasps out against his brutalized arm. His toes curl behind Kakashi, he tightens his knees against the jōnin, he scratches his nails against the wood and slams them into his palm. 

He feels Kakashi’s pace, so perpetual and unbothered, falter, losing the rhythm in the last –

Oh God - how long have they been fucking?

As Iruka sinks backward, pleasure splashed on his stomach and buzzing in his heat-addled brain, Kakashi slows his pace then stops entirely then relaxes his inhumanly strong grip on Iruka’s thighs.

Lucidity licks at Iruka, kicks him in the throat. Shame washes back over him. He doesn’t want to ever move his arm off his scar, off his eyes. He’ll never be able to look at Kakashi Hatake again. _Shit._ He’s already retired from missions out of the village, but now, _shit, now_.

But his heat drags happily across his flesh. It warns him this is not enough. This is just the start.

So Iruka lowers his arm and studies Kakashi with low-lidded eyes, sweat streaking down his brow. 

The alpha is nowhere near as hormonally troubled as he should be. Instead of being obsessively hungry for more, Kakashi seems like he’s only just broken a sweat, like he’s simply pushed it a little bit while practicing a new taijutsu move. His headband is still down over his Sharingan. His black mask, an extension of his ANBU shirt, still covers half his face, including his mouth, which…

Which Iruka is now thinking about.

They haven’t touched each other’s cocks… Hell, they haven’t even kissed.

And yet – 

Kakashi just fucked him like a fantasy strung out on soldier pills.

However, Iruka soon notices that the alpha is holding his body oddly. There’s a strange tension in Kakashi’s shoulders, in his pale-skinned arms resting at his sides. His gaze isn’t the fixated one from his ruts: it’s the same usual stare outside of combat, mostly blank with slight contemplative interest. Most obviously, the jōnin is studying Iruka’s sex-flushed, scarred face… he’s not considering the lewd mess painting so much of Iruka’s stomach… no, he’s just looking at Iruka, looking him in the eyes.

The intimate stare is so distracting that Iruka doesn’t immediately recognize the warning signs. 

But then he glances down, just a little, and realizes with a sharp kunai-to-the-brain start:

_This asshole hasn’t come yet!_

Furious heat – unlike his lustful nonsense – radiates from his core and sings all along his skin. It is impossible to contain, and it overrides his obscene obsession with getting fucked, so suddenly Iruka two-handed shoves Kakashi backward and straddles the alpha jōnin, and he’s glaring down at the non-responsive motherfucker with so much fire that he feels his soul evaporating in the uncontrolled inferno, and he twists Kakashi’s black shirt into his fist and yanks him up off the floor.

He’s fuming in Kakashi’s surprised face, so much of it totally hidden away, and he enunciates hard like he’s spelling out the most rudimentary jutsu for the most lackluster lazy student in class: 

“I’m going to fuck you. _You are going to come._ ”

Then he lets Kakashi go, and he shifts then settles down on the alpha’s cock, which is so sweet and easy, but also makes him want to whimper, but he won’t fucking do that, no, because, this time, he’s going to make Kakashi –

Fuck it. He’ll inspire sounds from Kakashi, or he’ll kill them both.

Some shinobi-smart part of him is whispering, _You’re losing it, you’re losing yourself_ , but Iruka punches that last little sliver of sanity straight in the dick, and he rides Kakashi Hatake with the sole intention of eliciting even the smallest sound of arousal from the God damn jōnin alpha.

Oh, his thighs love this, his legs are aflame, his core is so tight, his arms are behind him and holding him up, and he’s bouncing up and down on Kakashi’s ferociously hard cock, which still might be the greatest thing to ever fuck him, ever, in his entire life, but – but –

Damn you, Kakashi. Make a sound.

Instead –

Instead, Kakashi is staring up at him, his grey eye’s huge. There’s too much cloth in the way to fully understand the rest of his expression, but surprise certainly seems to be an essential part of it. The alpha’s arms are thrown to the side where they landed; he hasn’t tried to move them. Hell, he hasn’t moved at all since Iruka knocked him down and seethed in his face. His ANBU shirt’s ridden high up his abdomen, showing such fine white skin with a dozen different scars, some light, some dark. 

Iruka’s fingers trace a few as he fucks himself on the jōnin’s cock. He’s thoughtlessly stroking Kakashi’s silver pubic hair, touching the sharp-cut edges. He’s blissfully enjoying the hardness of the alpha’s sides against his legs as he dips up and down. He licks the edge of his lips, tasting sweat. He runs a shaky hand through his hair, brushing it off his face, stopping the dark curtain over his scar.

… unsure hands softly touch his bruised thighs.

Sudden astonishment knocks Iruka back into reality. He… has no idea how long he’s been fucking Kakashi. As he stares down, he sees the man under him is sweat-soaked and looks fatigue-staggered like he’s been struck several times in the skull. His scarred white abdomen has lots of little pink marks on it now: it takes a second to realize Iruka has been digging his nails into different parts of the alpha’s skin, not just his stomach but the hard cut of pelvis and the higher parts of his pecs. 

… Kakashi’s palms are resting on the inside of Iruka’s spread-open thighs. He’s close to Iruka’s ridiculously hard erection, but he seems to be deliberately staying away from…

_Son of a bitch!_

The jōnin still hasn’t come.

Shame and rage combine to destroy the last bit of Iruka’s etiquette. He grabs Kakashi’s hand, wraps both of their palms around Iruka’s wet weeping cock, and uses the alpha’s calloused grip to get off. 

Ecstasy is frustratingly easy to grasp. Even though every heat, that’s all that he wants, now he finds –

_How can I – I want to see him -_

It’s not an omega instinct that overtakes him. It’s pure desperation and power and pitifulness. 

Iruka tightens his hand over Kakashi’s, draws out their strokes on his slick cock, changes to fucking the other man at an exhaustingly slower pace - one that hurts it’s so languid and gentle and carefree.

His eyes connect hotly with Kakashi’s single grey one. He arches his back some, the muscles of his torso rippling with the tension of it, and he exposes more of the line of his throat as he fucks the man, trying, just so desperately trying to –

“Come for me,” Iruka pleads, and he’s truly surprised that he doesn’t hate how he sounds.

Kakashi stays still for a split second.

Then he winces, and his hand on Iruka’s cock shudders.

His black mask twists weirdly: Iruka realizes the man’s biting his lip, forcing himself to be quiet.

Suddenly, Iruka’s lost his breath, so he can only half-pant out, “Please – please let me hear you.”

Kakashi’s grey eye opens, seeming so conflicted. His shoulders give a heave, his torso quakes. Then he makes his filthy wet fist so much tighter on Iruka’s cock, and he strokes hard and quick, and Iruka can’t figure out what’s going on, just that he’s peaking out of nowhere, he’s clenching involuntarily around Kakashi, loving that hot thickness throbbing up into him, and he’s gasping out something, and – 

The alpha underneath him –

The jōnin –

The man –

_Kakashi moans._

The sound is so fucking arousing that Iruka feels his limp cock try to stir in excitement. He’s staring dumbfounded down at the other shinobi as he realizes only just then that he’s made Kakashi feel something, he’s made Kakashi come, he’s made Kakashi –

Oh, God. 

He made Kakashi moan.

He’s terrified, hoping it’s his heat, but, as satisfaction purrs through him, Iruka thinks for a moment:

_I’d do anything to hear that again._


	5. Chapter 5

They shouldn’t be together.

Kakashi knows that: he and Iruka might have something, but it’s against nature. When he slips out of Iruka’s apartment early the next morning, his body aches abnormally, like it never has before… While in heat, the omega took great pleasure using Kakashi, and the subsequent pain is astonishing. It takes an entire week for the bruises to fully fade away; there’s no solution for the exhaustion.

He’s tentative the next time he touches his cock, concerned Iruka might have sprained it from being so forceful with him… 

They’d fucked for _hours_ and _hours_. 

Sometimes Kakashi catches himself staring into the distance, thinking about that long night.

He thought he understood what he was getting into… but he was completely wrong. He’d been with other omegas during their heat, but they were only assertive at the start and then became passive for the rest. In contrast, Iruka might have been out-of-it initially, but, as time passed, after he came for the first time, the omega only grew wilder and wilder until he finally raged upon Kakashi.

Kakashi decisively tries not to remember Iruka during his heat. He was already haunted. After that night, he could well be forever scarred, like a knife stab through the heart. 

… Iruka riding him, blissed out, using him…

He restrains yet another shudder as he turns into the mission room. The C-rank was simple; he completed it alone - without incident - within the village. Gives eye-smile to a few other jōnin waiting in line. Flips open his book, rereads the same delightful passage from earlier. Steps ahead when someone finishes their business. Waits his turn, as any good nin should. Normally, he delays turning in reports, but hey, what else is there to do today?

The atmosphere’s peaceful because there’s no trouble running along Konoha’s borders, no outsiders causing trouble for the civilians or any of the omegas. Most of the recent missions are simple and easily accomplished, meaning the shinobi are collectively in good spirits and chatting amiably with one another. Of course, Kakashi mostly stays by himself. He’s not particularly interested in other people, although he does vaguely wonder where Gai is right now: they’re currently tied in their challenges, and Kakashi wouldn’t mind another round of their competition to distract him from -

_Hmm._

He looks over his book and surveys the mission room, spots the problem within a half-second. 

She’s a genin, one of those life-long ones, like Maito Gai’s father. He can’t tell her age, but it’s definitely early-to-mid twenties, around the same age as him, so this isn’t her…

This isn’t her first heat.

There are six other alphas in the room: Kakashi instinctively tracked them when he entered the enclosed space. Most are doing the same thing as him, stepping away from the genin omega. Three vanish with advanced Body Flicker jutsus, and two rush through getting their new mission scrolls. The last is stuck beside her, appears to be her teammate. That alpha is wide-eyed watching her, clearly surprised at the other woman’s sudden blush, a fine shimmery-sweaty pink-red that contrasts prettily with her shinobi blues. They’re staring at each other _that way_ , a look all too familiar. It’s a hormone-entangled re-assessment of each other, seemingly something they’d never done before. 

It’s unpleasant. 

Kakashi decides he’ll delay turning in his report. He feels hot under his mask. At first, he thinks he needs something to eat, maybe that one orange for breakfast wasn’t enough, but then he realizes…

_… Now? Really?_

So the omega’s accidentally pushed him over into his rut - fine, just fine. It was coming soon, he knew that, but he was hoping to make it through the market for dinner and then back home. 

Apparently not.

Rapidly, Kakashi feels his rationality leaving him. He’s not wanting that woman, but he is wondering where he could find an omega, he really could use an omega, one that could help ease him down from this hormonal torture, just someone to cling to for a little while - and then he’d feel better. They don’t have to be mates, they could just be together for - for a little while, yes, just a little while.

He’s dizzy, his thoughts are circling back around to one word, one single idea:

_Omega._

But Kakashi snarls internally at himself, wrangles desire like a recently stolen jutsu. He can enforce order over this, he can properly control himself, he can stop the spiraling search for someone special. 

He walks down the hallway away from the mission room.

“Kakashi-san!”

_… No._

Disregarding his infuriated insides, he instantly controls his expression, relieved as always that his mask and headband cover most of his rut-blush. Turning swiftly around, pretending like nothing’s the matter, Kakashi rolls into an easygoing eye-smile and waves his orange book in greeting. 

“Good morning, Iruka-sensei.”

The only omega who wouldn’t know he’s in rut… and he’s here, right now, in front of Kakashi. Of course, all the world’s betas would be bewildered to learn Kakashi was at the beginning stages of his mad hunt for a mate, but certainly alphas would notice the competition and treat him accordingly. Every other omega besides Iruka Umino would register Kakashi’s blush, stance, pheromones… if unmated, they’d most likely show immediate interest and appreciation. 

It’s a frequent annoyance.

Iruka looks like he’s in good health two weeks after his heat. Neither sweat nor tension have stayed on the man. As the chūnin hurries over to Kakashi, it seems like he’s returned to normalcy. As has been proven time and time again, there is almost no omega scent coming off Iruka Umino, not even as Kakashi’s rut truly starts to stir within him, a new enthusiasm that he finds utterly unbecoming.

There _is_ a very slight hint of omega pheromones, but it’s ghostly, passing through reality.

… nothing similar presented in Iruka’s heat, but now, during his rut, Kakashi can tell… just a little.

He keeps his face blank as he waits for a return greeting. Then he’s going to leave. Immediately.

Yet Iruka’s doing something different: the omega is inspecting Kakashi’s barely-visible face like he’s trying to understand the origins of humanity, discover the names of all the gods. It’s a totally unexpected look coming from the chūnin, who has very rarely scrutinized Kakashi, and has done so only when he’s deeply concerned…

“Are you okay?” Iruka asks, his voice purposefully lowered. His dark eyes are dissecting Kakashi. It… is very much not wanted. With his rut playing games with his head, he can feel some weird pull towards Iruka, although he can’t tell where it’s coming from. Is it because they fucked two weeks ago? Is it because he _knows_ Iruka is an omega, even though the man’s pheromones are nowhere near as strong as they should be, being practically nothing at all? Is it because of the two times Kakashi has embraced Iruka during his earlier ruts, exploiting Iruka’s natural calming effect?

… he doesn’t want to know, he doesn’t want to find out.

Twisted up inside, Kakashi smiles again, making sure it reaches his grey eye, and says, “Yes, bye,” in the very same breath, tries to turn around to stroll away quickly enough that he can flicker outside.

Iruka snatches Kakashi’s arm with a speed absolutely atypical for a chūnin. Trying to get Kakashi’s attention, trying to attract his single-eyed gaze, the omega’s tone is harder as he declares, “I know you’re not okay.”

Before he can stop himself, Kakashi snaps out, his eternally half-lidded eye narrowing further, “No, you wouldn’t know.” He goes to shake off Iruka, which should be a painless task, but…

The other man glowers at him, his hackles raised. The scar across his nose and cheeks gets all distorted – the same one Kakashi stared at during sex for _hours_ along with Iruka’s lust-heavy eyes - and Iruka closes in on him like this is fast-moving combat and Kakashi is the enemy. It should activate defensive shinobi training, but instead Kakashi finds himself observing it without concern, his consideration drifting down from Iruka’s incensed facial features to his omega collar. 

“I can tell when you’re in –”

Kakashi disrupts the final word of the sentence by hauling Iruka into the neighboring supply closet.

He’s crowding the omega chūnin against the door the moment that he closes it behind them. He can hear his own voice, it’s gotten darker, woven through with want and displeasure with his rut. So very close to Iruka’s half-surprised, half-aggravated, attractively scarred face, Kakashi is stating with incontestable certainty, “We both know you don’t feel anything with me.” He doesn’t mean to pause, but he does, and then he adds, simple, straightforward, “This has nothing to do with you.”

Irritation swells in Iruka’s scarred expression… then mysteriously fades away. 

Left behind is worry.

Kakashi has to restrain himself from jerking away as Iruka places a careful hand on his ANBU-tattooed bicep, hidden underneath his shinobi blue shirt. The chūnin’s eyes have gone soft; there’s an aching, pleading feeling suddenly filling the air. 

… he can’t tell if it’s from him, or Iruka… or both of them.

The next words spoken are almost inaudible, but they pierce Kakashi through.

“I can help you.”

His brain answers with a bold, throbbing cry: 

_Omega._

His control is lessening, it’s like water running through his hands. The strong coherent part of him, the part that made chūnin and jōnin and ANBU so early in life, tries to snatch it back, but it’s vaporizing into hot humid mist all around them. Kakashi can almost see it – his control dissolving – but his grey eye is fixing on Iruka’s omega collar, peeking just slightly over the neck of his shirt.

… Iruka, dripping sweat, furious dark eyes staring down at him, his body moving divine, his heat so welcoming and encompassing and boiling away every last one of Kakashi’s burdens…

_Ah. I could… We could…_

Kakashi steps forward into Iruka’s personal space, bending his arm, keeping it on the wall. His gaze is bewitched by the other man’s collar; he dreamily muses about shadowy omega pheromones. 

His cloth mask is in place over his mouth and nose, but it wouldn’t matter: Iruka smells nothing like an omega, he presents nothing like a potential mate. But the shinobi pressed against the wall is appealing, so very inexplicably appealing, that Kakashi’s uncovered eye scorches heated attention at the spot he has so enjoyed during earlier ruts. His soldierly insight reports on Iruka’s erratic breathing, how the man is becoming increasingly flushed, how both his hands are shaking slightly at his sides. 

Kakashi stops less than an inch away when he flicks up his gaze to meet Iruka’s amazed eyes. Their flak jackets brush against each other every time that the omega takes in a breath. Their sandaled feet are spaced so closely together they’re like interlocking parts of a puzzle. 

His voice is only a whisper when he asks, remembering Iruka’s heat:

“ _Can_ you help me?”

They’re in a stand-off: Iruka should say no, Kakashi should vanish. But they’re standing there, in the dark supply closet, barely any light leaking in. The stare feels forever-long, stretching through time, back to when man just learned to walk, forward to when men are swallowed up by the sun. It’s their breathing that saturates the small space, Iruka is unsteady, breathing through his nose, but Kakashi’s lips are parted under his mask, he’s having to take in more oxygen, he’s feeling so stupidly drunk.

Iruka looks Kakashi in the eye as he lifts his chin and leans his head to the side, deliberately exposing his collared neck.

With that shift, the man’s headband is off-center, the blue cloth tight around his head, the metal panel with its curls standing for Konoha, showing village pride and shinobi prowess and…

Kakashi’s hormonal haze fades a second for a new thought, one that just _sighs_ through him:

_Iruka Umino._

He’s deadly hormone-drunk, though, and his rut roars to life, knowing Iruka’s an omega, that this is a source of relief, and it’s freely available, it’s being offered, and take it, take it, take it, and he does, pressing his clothed mouth and nose against Iruka’s collared throat, bringing their bodies together. 

The omega pheromones are so, so far away, but he feels like he could catch it, like a leaf floating through the air, dancing away in the wind, so Kakashi settles in even further. He barely notices that his hand is between them, navigating Iruka’s flak jacket, pulling the zipper down. His gloved hand is underneath Iruka’s shirt, his fingers are running upward across Iruka’s abs and scratching back downwards continually, like a lazy summer-day feline scratching at a wood post. 

It’s different now. This isn’t the same as the training field or the garden. It’s different. Really different.

He keeps thinking about Iruka’s heat, their sex in the hallway. Of course he’s hard, it’s his rut after all, but he’s feeling an unusual burn through his body, he’s absently remembering the beauty of Iruka’s brown thighs, the flex of his muscles, the hardness of his cock, his white cum between them.

Perhaps it’s because right now Iruka is trembling against him again.

Dark pleasure pours up through him, feeling the man shivering. 

Without thinking, he murmurs into Iruka’s throat, his lips above the leather collar:

“ _Mmm, sensei._ ” 

He can _see_ Iruka’s brown skin deepen in hue… ah, the man’s blushing so nicely. Kakashi decides he likes that, he really likes that, he wants more of that. He presses Iruka more into the wall, their bodies ever more entwining, the thick of his thigh pushing between Iruka’s legs. Deliciously, the omega’s straining against cloth, and it takes no thought whatsoever for Kakashi to lower his hand from the man’s bare abdomen down into his pants, spellbound, seeking out hard heat. 

Filled with rolling dark joy, Kakashi smiles behind his mask when Iruka thrusts into his gloved palm.

Way in the distance, like an indistinct yell on the edge of a battlefield, barely heard but fatally important, there’s a call echoing about his mind, saying anxiously, this is bad, you shouldn’t, he’s not ready, don’t do this, don’t show yourself, this is like assaulting a beta, he’s not the usual omega, he –

Iruka interrupts his nebulous stumbling anxiety _by whimpering_.

Unable to stop himself, Kakashi pulls a bit away, glances with one eye at the chūnin.

There’s a lost smitten look in Iruka’s eyes that makes him want to use the Sharingan.

He doesn’t: he just undoes Iruka’s pants and his own, then puts their cocks together with one hand. Because of his rut, he’s sweating more, his arousal’s wet, the reward being that the motion of stroking them, getting them off, is so very easy and enjoyable, he doesn’t need to focus on it. Instead, Kakashi’s openly staring at Iruka, who is astonished by the intense attention, his mortification worsening by the second as Kakashi neither looks away, nor blinks, just watches him writhe against the wall, whimpering those little lovely sounds just for Kakashi, showing the rough swallow of his throat encased in that damn collar. 

At some point, Iruka grabs his arm tighter, right over his ANBU tattoo, above his shirt’s red patch. He’s only just enduring Kakashi’s hand, his shameless observation. Self-righteous satisfaction seems to be motivating Kakashi; he can barely distinguish that their cocks together feel good, really good, that he’s getting harder, that he’s weeping precum, because it’s Iruka’s fascinating blushing scarred expression that’s drawing all of his awareness to a single bright clear point, Iruka’s the only sharp thing in his hormone-fuzzy world that is otherwise so blurry and stirring up his senses.

Then Iruka squeezes his eyes shut, and he…

Even though he doesn’t say it aloud…

He mouths Kakashi’s name.

It’s like successfully copying a jutsu: there’s triumph, but it’s actually the start of war. For Kakashi’s eye goes from Iruka’s lips, the ones that just soundlessly spoke _Ka-kash-i_ , straight to Iruka’s neck, and that’s where he is less than a second later, keeping their hips apart while breathing in as much as the omega’s crazily faint scent as he possibly can. He’s taking in all the air that his lungs can handle, while his hand is moving quick on their cocks, keeping them together, keeping the grip hard and viciously promising. His mask’s in the way, but his mouth is slightly open, trying to inhale more, chase that elusive pheromone hiding somewhere within Iruka’s omega self, and his tongue hits the mask’s cloth, drives against the leather collar, and he can feel Iruka shiver so weakly, and he. bites. the. damn. collar. in. his. way.

In his right ear, below his headband, Iruka _gasps out_ then groans disbelievingly, “Fuck, _**fuck.**_ ”

His head stuffed with heat, with hormones, Kakashi moves higher on Iruka’s neck, while still using his hand wet and wicked on their cocks, and he laughs a little, dark and thrilled, remarking idly, “You’ve got a foul mouth for a sensei.”

Sounding quite hysterical, Iruka also laughs and says swiftly, his words fluttering Kakashi’s hair, “Don’t tell anyone.”

The pleasure from Iruka being so cheeky, so honest with him – ah, shit, it’s so much different from sex – _it’s better_ – it makes Kakashi’s brain malfunction, and, at once, his rut goes all complicated and awry and weird.

He’s on his knees, he doesn’t know why. His mask is clinging to his chin, his lips are sliding over Iruka’s cock, his nose is buried in Iruka’s dark pubic hair. His hand is moving fast between his own thighs, jerking himself off with reckless abandon, without any restraint or sense of self-respect.

 _He loves how Iruka tastes._ He could stay here forever, he wants the memory of Iruka on his tongue in his dreams, he’s pulling up his headband, he’s flexing open the Sharingan. His hand then wraps around Iruka’s leg, grabs the man by the ass, forcing him forward, deeper into his mouth. That glorious ache in his jaw, how his muscles of his throat protest but want more shoved further in, how tears spring wet like dew from his eye and the Sharingan and stream down his cheeks, how some of his pleasured weeping catches down the knife-scar on his face. His gloved palm might be too rough, but who can tell anymore, and who even cares, he’s barely aware of his own cock, he really is only thinking about Iruka’s cock _filling_ his mouth, making him _choke_ , making him _gag_.

There’s a mantra being said above his head, in his head, one word, over and over:

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck –”

As his eyelashes flutter wet against his cheeks, Kakashi digs his nails into the curve of Iruka’s ass. He’s reaching his climax, something clever tells him that, but he’s not there, he’s not interested in that.

He wants Iruka to come.

He glances up at the man.

Iruka is _staring_ down at him, truly shocked wonder in his blush, through his scar.

… it’s at that point Kakashi realizes _it’s Iruka_ who is desperately repetitively muttering “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck” as he looks at Kakashi so incredulously he seems close to passing out. Briefly, it occurs to Kakashi that he should slow down, maybe even stop, but then again, nope, that’s not what’s going to happen, not at all, fuck that idea completely. Instead, Kakashi ditches his own cock and wraps his newly freed hand around Iruka’s, stroking the man into his open mouth, lapping at Iruka’s tip with his eager tongue. 

He does taste so good.

This’ll be a brilliant memory, yes, yes, yes.

Seemingly suddenly, Iruka’s coming against his lips, his lust hitting Kakashi’s scarred cheek. Far below them, Kakashi tips over into profane pleasure, and he can barely keep open his eye and the Sharingan as the force of his orgasm barrels into him, through him, tosses him into chaos. 

He’s staggering to his feet; he’s looking at Iruka, flushed, halfway collapsed down the wall. 

Without his mask, it’s so much easier to press his face against Iruka’s throat - past Iruka’s flak jacket collar, his shinobi shirt collar, and his omega collar, all three of which have Kakashi distractedly but irritably thinking how fucking much he hates fucking collars.

Taking in a slow but serious long breath, letting those oh-so-vague omega pheromones filter back to his greedy brain, circulating the delicate omega hormones with his own heavy alpha mix, Kakashi steps away from Iruka. His balance isn’t as refined as it usually is, but his slouch is still there, only it’s much more uncontrolled, now he’s nearly slumping off to one side. 

He realizes he’s smiling, small, sated, while studying Iruka’s disheveled mess and saving it for later.

Then - 

In the blink of an eye –

He’s in his apartment, the wards are raised, he’s resting in bed… It’s nice, he feels calm.

Several hours later, Kakashi suddenly sits up and stares at literally nothing and thinks to himself,

_… did I just start my rut with Iruka?_


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad y'all are enjoying this. I appreciate your love in these difficult times.
> 
> ____

One second, they’re looking at each other.

The next, Kakashi breezes by him, opens the door, walks about three feet into the hallway, stops and sways, distracted and drunken, and then lazily flips through the hand formations for a Body Flicker jutsu with the leisurely pace of an elderly retired shinobi. 

… the man’s pants are still open and undone, but off he goes, heading out into the big wide world.

Shocked beyond belief, Iruka’s still gawking at the open door as he yanks his pants and boxer-briefs back up his thighs. An unruly, ungodly blush dominates his very being, he’s so shocked and appalled by Kakashi’s vanishing act. Both of their cum is spilled on the floor; he sees that some of Kakashi’s is on Iruka’s sandals and the cuff of his pants. Although he’s ludicrously desperate to leave, leave right the fuck now, he snatches cleaning solution off the wall, pours it on the ground, and slams down his flak jacket on the mess, working to rid the supply closet of all signs of their sex. 

It’s the smell of sharp chemical cleaner that wakes his ass right up.

_Oh my fucking God – that really just happened - !_

He’s staring down at the floor, his eyes impossibly wide, frantically mopping up their sex, when he hears a fellow mission desk chūnin exclaim with a boisterous bark of laughter, “Ha! Well, looks like someone did fall to her charms!! The closet reeks of alpha. Hey, guys, come, get a whiff of this!”

Internally screaming shrill and insane, Iruka hastily shoves his dirtied flak jacket to his chest and flies through a Body Flicker jutsu, sending him crashing across the street outside of the building. He ignores the surprised looks of a civilian pair who he nearly collided with and instead speedwalks straight home to his apartment. His brain is so astounded, so totally floored by what’s just happened, he can’t think of anything coherent or smart or clear, not until –

Not until he’s putting on pajama pants after his shower, because that’s when Iruka finally notices –

Kakashi has left a perfect handprint on Iruka’s ass in the form of a golden-brown bruise.

He tries not to choke to death in horror, but Iruka puts his fingers on the bruise, as if touching it might make it go away. Instead, the action only reminds him of –

_God, what the fuck was that!_

The blame does not entirely fall on Kakashi. No, a good deal of guilt belongs to Iruka, who honestly had thought he was doing the right thing by looking after the alpha jōnin when he appeared so dazed. Sure, the humanitarian effort escalated into truly terrifying temptation (Kakashi’s whispered “ _Can_ you help me?” makes him shiver even now) and then they – they -

After pulling up his clothes, Iruka slumps down onto the bed and drops his head into his hands. The sensitive shiver of a second ago only continues as the adrenaline fades and brutal reality sets in. 

He and Kakashi –

They really did –

The alpha didn’t emanate any pheromones, none whatsoever, which was the same confusing normal for Kakashi - but his fixated stare had radiated rut. He was seeing through Iruka, past skin and scar, through layers of trauma and dream, into his very soul. There was no way for Iruka to stop himself from making the worst sounds, to hold back whimpers. He probably sounded like the most immodest omega ever in existence. 

But Kakashi’s hand was once again on his cock, except this time –

_They **touched** each other. His and Kakashi’s – ah, they **touched.**_

It sends Iruka blushing like a schoolgirl learning about heats and ruts for the first time. 

Ridiculously, he puts his hand up to his mouth and bites down, trying to keep himself from making noises now, way too late, so far after the fact. But, hell, he feels like jerking off, only minutes later. 

He can blame on Kakashi for that! God, that’s not what ruts are supposed to be like – or are they? He… really doesn’t know, now that he’s thinking about it. Yes, of course he knows from teaching about them, from reading books, from seeing alphas succumb to hormones in the field and about the village. Nonetheless, this is the first time that he’s been with an alpha in rut… really been with one. He knows that Kakashi is deeply uncomfortable being in rut: every time they’ve interacted before this, first on the training field when he tackled Iruka, then in the garden when he fell into Iruka’s arms, those two encounters only lasted a few minutes. Soon enough, Kakashi stepped away and smoothly vanished into thin air, his rut seemingly satisfied, his flawless shinobi skill on display.

… what just happened between them was not that.

It’s difficult to assess what made it so different. Maybe… did Iruka’s heat do something? Made Kakashi realize Iruka really is an omega, a potential sexual partner, someone to… use? But the uglier thought also occurs to Iruka: Maybe the genin omega was a good mate for him and made Kakashi crazier than usual? The idea sinks his heart like a stone through to his stomach. They don’t feel anything with each other, so it’s not some primitive instinct. It must have been the other omega.

Undeniably, this time, things were hotter between them, more active and frantic. Still, Kakashi only really lost it when…

Iruka flips over on his stomach on the bed and buries his face in a pillow. 

Ugh, the very tips of his ears burn, he’s so embarrassed and aroused and shocked by it all. 

One moment, breathless, they’re were teasing one another with a tiny bit of banter… And then, before Iruka could even blink, Kakashi was on his knees, deep-throating Iruka like that’s all he was good for.

 _The textbook absolutely did not discuss that!_ he decides in stupefied aggravation. Everything he knows about alphas embroiled in ruts - and he’s done his damn research, he’s an Academy teacher, for God’s sake – centers around their overwhelming desire to find an omega, make a florid alluring display, and tempt the omega into sex and hopefully a mated pairing. There was none of that between them. Instead, Kakashi wanted to leave Iruka in the hallway; he’d been obviously trying to get away. It had been Iruka who pled with him, pushed him, provoked him… not the other way around. In that way, their roles could have been switched – he, the alpha, and Kakashi, the omega.

Although Kakashi had asked him… ugh, that damn flattering-frustrating line, “ _Can_ you help me?”… it was Iruka who exposed his neck, trying to initiate sex without saying as much aloud.

The brazen temptation made him blush again. He wants to chalk it up to being unmated, becoming more recklessly receptive because he doesn’t have a secure sex partner, let alone a permanent mate…

But…

But no. He had simply wanted to be with Kakashi again. 

Get him to make another sound. _Make him moan._

Fuck.

Yet it had been him again whimpering and gasping. Kakashi was totally silent, excluding the delicious but oh-so-obscene sounds of slurping, fist-fucking, and super-crazed heavy breathing. Iruka hadn’t even realized he was cursing under his breath until the alpha glanced up at him, pink tongue out against Iruka’s hard cock, with sweat and saliva messily spread over his face, chin, scar. 

_… oh my God, I came on his face._

**_I came on Kakashi Hatake’s face._ **

_And then he waltzed away like a fucking weirdo!!_

Iruka is so mortified that he forces himself to pass the fuck out.

It is well after midnight: the moon’s soft white light streams in through his window. He’s not sure why he woke up, but he’s groggily considering the glass, sleep still in his eyes. There’s a strange shifting sensation in the atmosphere… Iruka wonders if there’s an ANBU nearby, returning from a patrol, forcing away other villages’ alphas from Konoha’s omegas… Feeling reassured by the idea of elite nin defending Konoha, he starts to roll over.

Then he sees it.

Kakashi Hatake is crouched outside his bedroom window. 

He’s not dressed as ANBU. He’s in his jōnin attire - minus the flak jacket. 

Unbelievably, he has his hand up in an irritating little wave.

Iruka is incredulous and pissed beyond measure: he opens the window, gestures for Kakashi to get the fuck inside, and moves out of the way just enough to let the other nin into his bedroom. He watches as Kakashi silently removes his sandals and places them aside, perfectly polite under the most unusual of circumstances. The jōnin looks different without his heavy green jacket – slimmer, less guarded, more relaxed, like this is a casual meeting of friends for spontaneous late-night sake. 

Of course, Kakashi’s mask is in place, and his headband shields the Sharingan.

_… ugh, it wasn’t covered the last time I saw him._

Red-and-black was swirling swiftly while memorizing Iruka’s messed-up, sex-strewn body.

The heat of the memory is too much and causes Iruka to snap out, “Why are you here.” It’s barely a question. It’s more of a command: Answer me now, or I will kick your ass back out the window.

Kakashi is impeccably unreadable as always. He’s standing easygoing but quite still. His hands are both in his pants pockets, and his single grey eye is resting on Iruka, unmoving and unemotional. 

It’s like only Iruka is bothered by what’s happening between them. Humiliation churns within him like a black ocean stirred up by a storm, and Iruka’s just about to furiously demand Kakashi leave.

But then Kakashi tilts his head down, the action radiating humility, and he says, quiet but clear:

“I’m sorry.”

The two words leave Iruka flabbergasted: he’s slack-jawed gaping at the other man. Soon enough, though, he shuts his mouth and shakes his head, striking out scornfully, “Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?” He can tell that Kakashi doesn’t fully understand what happened. It is so fucking infuriating, being sober as hell for this, being used and abandoned in such a public space!

The man’s apology doesn’t mean shit.

Iruka’s scowling, he can feel his face screwed up. Just a few feet away, Kakashi’s attentive, observing his anger rising. Yet the jōnin alpha only shrugs his shoulders. He doesn’t move his hands from his pockets. While he holds Iruka’s wrathful gaze, Kakashi replies shortly, curt, “No, I don’t know.”

The smell of chemical cleaner floods Iruka’s senses: sharp, painful, frantic.

His hands ball up into fists as he goes to verbally strangle the life out of Kakashi. “You left me,” he announces with blistering heat, but… as he says it aloud, embarrassment knocks the wind out of his anger, and he wilts with a new unpleasant disappointment rising up through him. Iruka can’t keep eye contact anymore: he looks down at the floor, wondering just why he feels so horrible suddenly.

“Did I hurt you?” 

Iruka lifts his gaze, not expecting the jōnin’s question.

Kakashi seems to look the same as always, but…

Now Iruka pays more attention. He notices a familiar strength behind Kakashi’s stare. It makes him shiver irrepressibly, and, even though his omega instincts don’t see anything interesting, Iruka finally identifies what that he should have already recognized instantly on a deep, profound, primitive level.

“You’re still…” 

But Kakashi doesn’t flinch at the half-said accusation. He’s clearly waiting on Iruka to respond. His grey eye, though – it’s doing the one thing that signifies that Kakashi Hatake is an alpha, he’s currently rolling in rut, he is in hormonal disarray right here and now in Iruka’s bedroom in the middle of the night.

Iruka’s blushing as he averts his eyes a little, surprised by his rapidly increasing heartbeat. 

He answers Kakashi’s question if he was hurt at all. 

“Just my feelings,” he says without thinking.

It startles them both. Even as Iruka stammers inwards - _oh my God, why did I say that!_ \- Kakashi seems shaken into moving, and, while he’s peaceful in his advance, he’s evidently determined. Shinobi training screams at Iruka to move, move, move – put up a barrier jutsu – this guy intends on grabbing you, he will fuck you up, he’s more powerful than you by miles – 

Yet Iruka remains standing and uselessly staring as Kakashi stops just short of him.

He knows this is an alpha.

Maybe that explains why he feels so, so weak…

Surrounded by darkness, Kakashi leans towards him, his grey eye seeing through Iruka. Even as ethereal hope spreads goosebumps over his skin, Iruka still can’t look away or move an inch. He feels like he might disintegrate into a spirit, this is so spectral and spectacularly confusing. 

Kakashi’s masked mouth is by his ear, but they actually aren’t touching anywhere.

The man’s whisper makes Iruka tremble.

“I am truly sorry, sensei.”

He tilts his head to the side so their gazes meet. Kakashi’s grey eye keeps on his for a long second… then stunningly drops down to Iruka’s bare neck. Ah, to be an alpha in rut… this must be painful for the jōnin… painful, distressing, and incomprehensible. He keeps in such control of himself: as a shinobi, Kakashi Hatake is a refined specimen, so perfect it seems possible he could reach Hokage. 

Yet as an alpha… so much of that control is thrown away with hormones muddling everything.

Kakashi has been an anomalous unique alpha since the first time they met, and every time afterwards, with their shared hormonal deadness so damnably apparent during each encounter, but… Iruka realizes now, for whatever reason, he just can’t stay away from the man.

As his heart throbs violently in his chest, Iruka gently puts his hands on either side of Kakashi’s waist.

Even though Kakashi’s expression is either blank or otherwise hidden, the man can’t control how his grey eye dilates in response to the touch, as desire jolts backwards to the animal part of his brain, right past innate talent and nin training. 

Iruka knows this temporary… that this is just for Kakashi’s rut, for Iruka’s heat. 

What they have isn’t real. It never will be. After all, they have no natural reaction to each other.

Still, Iruka makes sure to soften his voice as he proposes, “Do you need any more help tonight?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something for you in the chaos of the world.
> 
> ____

Dozens of omegas have offered themselves to Kakashi.

Most were from Konoha, but some were from other villages.

A few were enemy nin, caught up by his rut, instinctively responding to him. 

He has only accepted six. Three female, three male. His first rut was at age fifteen, early for an alpha, but it made sense, he achieves most things before most people. The first year, he was still deeply involved with ANBU, barely taking off the mask: his first two partnerships happened at that time. They were both from Konoha, one a civilian, one a jōnin, both around his age. It took him until eighteen to accept another encounter with an omega… not because he was traumatized by his first two… but because he detested the overriding sensations of rut… and how omegas fell into line in response. Between eighteen and twenty, he had three more partners, two being enemy nin. All three were jōnin-ranked in their local village, but one no longer called his home… The man was lean and unfairly pretty, with scars cascading down his skin and a matte-black mask covering most of his face. 

Kakashi was in rut, alone, as an ANBU. The other nin – a missing nin – was his target… an omega.

Their few hours together scarred him. Their interaction scrambled his memories, even though he used the Sharingan the whole time. He can only remember both of them locking eyes… and then…

They kissed. 

He and the missing nin… they kissed with their masks on.

It ended abruptly when the omega shook out of his sex-stupor and saturated the area in darkness. Still hormone-drunk, overly indulged in his wants, Kakashi was forced to summon his ninken, entirely relying on them for help. Fortunately, they faced none of the primitive turmoil of alpha or omega: they dragged the missing nin into the light, where Kakashi killed him with a sharp kunai.

He has avoided omega ever since. 

But then…

There was Iruka Umino.

The man’s standing in the moonlight, and Kakashi is leaning into his offered embrace. His rut is nearly over: usually he would endure the rest, not touching himself, waiting out the last hour or so. 

But… there’s just something so mysteriously _appealing_ about the chūnin. He feels that once again as he places his masked nose and mouth into the curve of Iruka’s neck. The extreme delight of not having to deal with Iruka’s collars – three.fucking.collars. – is so much that Kakashi feels waves of tension drop out of his form, as if it were a physical weight that could be thrown off. His arms wrap around the other man; he can feel Iruka’s hands slip down to his lower back. 

His rut’s not that bad now, he can think better, he can remember things.

Ah… way back, when Obito and he fought in front of Minato-sensei, before any of the madness truly began, the death of his friends and his sensei, the eruption of his unwieldy hormonal state.

They’re embracing again… he and Iruka. Embracing hard, too hard maybe. He selfishly thinks how much he likes the other man’s body so thoroughly woven with his own… As a shinobi, Iruka has strength, and his muscles and roughened skin are a reassurance to Kakashi… He can’t be broken. 

So Kakashi holds him even harder, and Iruka huffs, the air pressed out of his lungs.

It’s cute.

Lost in time, lost in this, Kakashi kisses Iruka’s neck through his mask.

Iruka stiffens all-over… followed by a tremor that could have brought Konoha to the ground.

It’s inspiring. Kakashi masked-kisses him again, insistently, wanting more reaction, needing more. Warm pleasure rushes through him when Iruka gives a small gasp into his exposed ear. He lifts up to kiss under the man’s earlobe. He noses some of Iruka’s ponytail and wonders what the short hairs on the nape of his neck might feel like… if he wore no mask… and his lips were free to kiss Iruka.

Unexpectedly, the chūnin shifts in his hold, so Kakashi pulls back to understand the change.

He meets Iruka’s dark eyes.

They’re so close now.

His mind suggests he lean forward… into a kiss. 

Iruka doesn’t wait for him to act: the omega’s hand is suddenly in Kakashi’s hair, then on his mask, then he’s pulling down the cloth, and then their lips are touching soft at first, but soon…

Kakashi has sort-of forgotten how to kiss. He definitely does not remember what it’s like to kiss without cloth in the way, but it doesn’t seem to matter that his guard's down, that he’s open and bare and unprotected. Just like all the times before, tonight Iruka does not smell like an omega, so the mask isn’t needed to prevent intrusive pheromones, because Iruka is not a chaos-inducing creature sent to toy with his self-control. Even now, though, Kakashi understands his cloth mask was one last barrier to protect him from other people, to keep them away, even and especially during intimacy.

Iruka so easily pulled it down.

Strangely, he is so relieved that he begins to push Iruka towards the bed. Along the way, Kakashi grasps his own headband by the metal panel and drops it down onto the nightstand. Suddenly, he and Iruka are laying down, side by side, facing each other, and they’re still kissing through it all, sometimes featherlight kisses, sometimes kisses that are much longer, lewder, deeper. 

_He loves how Iruka tastes._ His hands are wild, out of his control. He’s threading his fingers through Iruka’s hair, he’s wrestling with the locks and twisting them into his grip, he’s trying to get Iruka even closer somehow. 

Iruka appears equally unable to control himself. The man is urgently touching Kakashi’s chest, his abdomen, his hipbones. He’s occasionally gasping into the kisses, which makes Kakashi’s head spin.

They’re both dazed and delirious when Iruka interrupts, looking at Kakashi through long eyelashes.

He asks with subtle heat in his voice: 

“Can I touch you?”

Kakashi can hear himself breathing, not in an attempt to inhale omega pheromones, just… trying to breathe. At first he doesn’t understand what Iruka means, they’re already kissing and groping one another. But then he finally notices, really notices, where Iruka’s fingertips are located: the omega’s playing with Kakashi’s silver pubic hair, the highest part that peeks above the belt line of his pants. 

The Sharingan’s a little sore, but Kakashi opens it, keeping both it and his eye half-lidded. Without thinking, he twirls a strand of Iruka’s hair on one finger, preoccupied by the feel of it. His fast-beating heart was already pounding blood through his body, but now it skips a beat or two. The most peculiar feeling of butterflies in his stomach distracts him even further, but Kakashi wills himself through it, staring at Iruka. His rut seems so abnormal, maybe because it’s nearly over, but…

He nods. He can’t reply out loud.

Iruka’s is surprisingly gentle as he shimmies Kakashi’s clothes down.

It’s probably his rut - why Kakashi suddenly blushes full-force.

They’re both staring fixated between them as Iruka tentatively touches him for the first time.

Neither of them expects Kakashi to tremble, but he does, still blushing like a maniac. Apparently, it is not as unattractive as Kakashi worries it is, because, immediately, Iruka’s left hand encircles his cock, tightens, and pulls upward. At the same time, his right hand reaches deep into Kakashi’s hair and yanks him closer with exceptionally thrilling excessive force, just so they can kiss again.

_Both – is - too much -_

Kakashi can’t endure both the hand on his cock and the forceful kissing; he’s clutching onto Iruka like the man is the only real thing in a fever dream filled with hallucinations. He must have closed his eye and the Sharingan at some point, because he briefly gets a glimpse of Iruka between kisses.

The omega is excited.

It’s not just sexual excitement, that’s incredibly clear.

No… Iruka’s victoriously half-smiling into their kisses. Even as he licks into Kakashi’s mouth, his one hand sinfully squeezes Kakashi’s shuddering cock. While he intimately intertwines their legs together, his fingers on his other hand scratch down Kakashi’s back, under his shirt, his bare skin. 

It’s so much, it’s too much.

His rut seems odd this time: he feels so fucking weird.

Nevertheless, Iruka doesn’t seem to notice his unease, how unsettled this is all making Kakashi. The omega isn’t waiting, he isn’t holding back. Instead Iruka is taking full advantage of him in his weakness, and… Kakashi’s kissing him back, absolutely entranced. He’s thrusting into Iruka’s hand without any restraint. He’s almost tearing out Iruka’s hair he has such a death grip on the chūnin. 

He knows he’s been reduced to a shaky mess when the other man presses a hot mouth to his ear and demands with fevered impatience, “What do you want to do? _Tell me what you want._ ”

Fuck, _fuck_ , _**fuck**_ , he’s never felt this way with an omega.

Suddenly, he’s staring down at Iruka’s naked back, he’s spreading Iruka open, he’s licking the man where it’s off-limits, those sweet spaces that make unmated omegas nervous and feel far too vulnerable, the places where they’d push him away from, both silently and verbally commanding him to get away from there, get back to fucking, and he’d obey instinctively in primal response without rationally wanting to do so, wanting instead to lick and taste there for as long as humanly possible. 

_Hell, does Iruka taste good._

He’s been tongue-fucking Iruka for a long while – he only knows that, though, because Iruka starts to quiver in a strange new way, and Kakashi pauses only to sharply bite the inside of the omega’s lovely thigh. Hot delirious delight fills up his body as he realizes Iruka’s just come on the bedsheets. It motivates him to be villainous and cruel to the sweetly abused omega: Kakashi doesn’t warn him as he moves up and drives into Iruka with all his weight and power at once, sinking.in.all.the.way.

_Iruka’s answering moan causes Kakashi to black out._

Abruptly, his face is smushed into Iruka’s hair; he twitches and reels backward in confusion. Underneath him, the other man is gasping unevenly. His chest heaves into the bed, having lost all control over his breath. Kakashi pulls slightly away by shifting into a plank over the man. He’s not sure what just happened or what exactly he did.

Moonlight hits the back of Iruka’s neck where his dark hair pushed aside.

… a long line of wet glistens in the cool lighting. 

There’s no teeth marks, but…

All of a sudden, Kakashi can’t breathe either. The sight is so transfixing; he is utterly dumbfounded by it. Without remembering the last few seconds, or perhaps even the last few minutes, Kakashi instantly understands what he had wanted to do. There’s no reason for there to be saliva on Iruka’s neck like that, not unless he…

The omega turns his head slightly, showing off the start of his scar, his flushed face, his dark eye.

There’s apprehension in his expression… but amazement, too. 

So much of Kakashi wants to run.the.fuck.away.

But he’s already done that today, so Kakashi gingerly eases away from Iruka, strokes his shoulder, and says quietly, “I’m going to get a towel to clean us,” which he then does, remembering the apartment layout from Iruka’s heat two weeks ago. His body goes through the motions automatically, but his brain is totally fried, like he’s comatose-wasted on chakra exhaustion after using the Chidori too many times. There’s wet cloth in his hands, he’s tending to his cock and the slick, then he’s back in the bedroom, doing the same to Iruka, who has only partially turned on his side, where he stays, watching Kakashi take meticulous care of him, his sweat, his sex, his come. Iruka… seems to have come twice, Kakashi notices while dazedly studying the bedsheets and the omega’s sex-wrecked body.

He helps the man up, so they can take off the dirtied sheets. 

Iruka leaves and arrives back to the room with new bedding. They redress the bed in silence. 

Kakashi is not surprised when Iruka slumps back onto the bed, pulls up the sheets, and cuddles up to the pillow without changing into new pajamas. He _is_ surprised by the way the nude chūnin is now looking at him: he can’t identify the meaning behind such a long, penetrating stare. The instinct to retreat and self-preserve is still very much there. Kakashi wants to surrender to it, but _Iruka is looking at him._

He blearily realizes that he’s entirely naked. He’s taken off all of his clothes - when he doesn’t know.

Still watching him, Iruka smooths a hand over the open spot beside him in bed.

Then –

They’re together in bed, looking at each other, without saying anything.

Kakashi shuts the Sharingan first. It aches. Badly.

His half-lidded grey eye lowers even more in exhaustion. He only just catches Iruka glance further down his bare face, where his mask usually covers. Through fading rut-fatigue, decades of observation practice and natural insight combine to tell him: _He’s appreciating your beauty mark._

He doesn’t know why - but his heart gives a little flutter at the idea.

He also doesn’t understand why he absently thinks as he slips into slumber,

_I hope he likes it._


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay, folks. I fell sick, most likely with the disease of the hour. I finally recovered after two weeks. I hope you are doing well out there in the world. Know I'm very proud of you. I am always so humbled by your readership. I sincerely hope you enjoy this chapter. ♡ 
> 
> ___

He wakes up as the sun rises.

It’s not the light that wakes him – it’s Kakashi sleepily pulling Iruka closer into his chest. Confusion swirls through him like leaves caught in the wind as Iruka tries to understand what this is, where is he, who is this with him in bed… But Kakashi’s skin is so achingly pale. It offers a beautiful tapestry of new and old scars, all of which now Iruka sees up-close, as his scarred face is crushed over Kakashi’s heart. He’s flustered for a few seconds until he finally gets a hold of the reality all around him. 

They spent the night together, he and Kakashi Hatake. 

He… and an alpha. 

That’s never happened before.

There was that one alpha during his third heat, but the others were fleeting, on the street, never at home, and never for long. Somehow, though, somehow… here is Kakashi Hatake, the alpha who he feels nothing with, who feels nothing for him… that alpha is resting in his bed. He’s humming deeply, situating Iruka to be even more flush against him. He’s thoughtlessly using taijutsu in his sleep to keep Iruka firmly enmeshed with him. 

It’s stunning – really, truly stunning.

Worse, though… Iruka likes it. Not just a little piece of him. Not the dumb animal omega part of him, the one ancient and prehistoric. No, it’s more than that… it’s like… he doesn’t feel like an omega with Kakashi. 

… so then… what… does he feel… like…?

Fortunately, his thought process can’t resist the pleasant warmth in Kakashi’s embrace and fades away like a dark fog lifting over a springtime meadow. He nestles in further, wrapping his own arms around the other man. His heart does the kind of backflip that would astonish his genin sensei when Kakashi mumbles drowsily into Iruka’s hair, “Mmm, c’mere.” He sounds so totally unlike himself - but just like himself, too? Is that possible? How is that possible??

Iruka has no idea. He doesn’t care. Smiling to himself, he buries his face in Kakashi’s bare chest.

It occurs to him, on a delay, that they’re both naked.

Their hips are perfectly aligned: Iruka abruptly realizes he can feel Kakashi’s morning arousal at the very same time that he notices that – fuck! – he’s also – oh fuck, don’t be a pervert, this was a sweet moment, you’re making it something lewd, just stop it…!

As a blush overpowers him and he stares in panic at Kakashi’s chest scars, the elite nin embracing him begins to sir. He’s soon stretching like a lazy feline waking up, his muscular legs pointing down towards the end of the bed. But Kakashi’s arms only tighten more around Iruka, acting like he can’t let the man go, even as he rotates his shoulders and stretches out his sore back muscles. He’s continuing the same throaty hum, but then it transitions into a sloppy yawn. 

Iruka feels ridiculous observing the other shinobi: Kakashi seems so nonchalant holding him in bed, as if this is something he does all the time, cuddling omegas in his arms through the night. 

That’s… not true, is it?

Kakashi always seems so detached from omegas… hell, he doesn’t even seem to like them.

But now he’s slowly opening his grey eye, rolling it up to the window. Iruka can literally see him assessing the sunlight, the temperature, the weather, his position in the village. It would be terribly frightening if it weren’t so damn impressive. In contrast, Iruka is flat-out flabbergasted while watching the man. He definitely didn’t look outside when he woke up; he didn’t worry about patrolling ANBU or alphas on the prowl… 

Yet Kakashi’s doing it instinctively even while rousing himself from deep dream-filled sleep. The jōnin is clever enough to keep his eyelid closed over the Sharingan: the dōjutsu must be exhausting since it’s not meant for Hatakes, just Uchihas. Although they’ve never really talked about it, Iruka can tell that Kakashi’s careful about his use of the powerful eye jutsu. It must strain his chakra reserves, which, as far as Iruka can discern, are actually relatively small. 

Then Kakashi’s fingers – all ten of them – tap, one after the other, along Iruka’s bare back like the man’s casually waving at some distant stranger.

Suddenly the half-lidden grey eye is locked down on Iruka.

Shit, so is the Sharingan!

Iruka’s staring up at Kakashi; he feels like he was caught stealing sweets from the kitchen. He feels stupidly meek, maybe even bashful, a young lover that shouldn’t be here in the morning. But this is his fucking house – not Kakashi’s! – and so Iruka secures his expression, solidifies his gaze, and gazes back into the grey eye and the dōjutsu, pretending to be unafraid.

The jōnin blinks.

The Sharingan does not reappear, but his original eye opens again as Kakashi considers Iruka.

Without any cloth in the way, Iruka becomes yet again distracted by the black beauty mark beside Kakashi’s lip, the one near his chin. The little mark had been always hidden away by blue cloth or black cloth – yet now it’s there for him to visually worship – and he feels his own scarred facial features soften as he flicks his eyes from the mole back up to Kakashi’s calculating single eye. It’s surprising, how the alpha jōnin is observing him with an air of timid confusion and shock. Certainly, last night, Kakashi had seemed very coherent and conscious of his actions… although, admittedly, now that Iruka is reviewing their encounter in broad daylight… well… maybe Kakashi’s rut had made the other man more a mess than usual.

After all, Kakashi had answered Iruka’s “What do you want?” demand by –

… ah, by…

Unbearably embarrassed by the memory of having been eaten out so fucking thoroughly that he came from that alone - which damn, that was a first! – Iruka finds himself blushing as he looks up at Kakashi. 

The jōnin is motionless. His arms are fixed in place, as is his one eye. Both are _devouring_ Iruka as if he’s a scared prey trying ineffectively to hide in high grass. In contrast, Kakashi seems more like an all-knowing predator, seeing his location and every last one of his weaknesses.

Very slowly, very carefully, Kakashi relaxes his grip on Iruka. The action is so methodical, it reminds Iruka of a basic lesson at the Academy: this is how a shinobi should deal with a crisis. 

… Iruka wonders how much alphas actually remember from their rut. He knows what the books say, but the books _also_ say that omegas are always swept away by hormones and delight in the raw sexuality of alpha-in-rut pheromones. Well, that’s not his experience - not with Kakashi Hatake, anyway. The man is now reflecting without saying a word: he could either molest Iruka or sprint straight out the window, utterly nude and uncaring to the world. 

He’s done something like that that before, so it’s not just Iruka’s imagination.

Honestly, Kakashi seems lost.

Iruka feels bad: he can’t tell if Kakashi remembers that Iruka consented, that he invited him to stay last night.

So, intuitively, he tries to comfort the other man, something he’s done several times before with Kakashi when the man’s in rut. Without putting much thought behind his action, Iruka pulls his hand from Kakashi’s waist and traces a line over the alpha’s cheekbone, caressing backward into his morning-tousled hair. The poor jōnin watches him as if this is perhaps a jutsu that might end his very fucking life. The sudden stricken expression only motivates Iruka more, and he ends up threading his fingers into Kakashi’s wild silver locks. 

He’s smiling without realizing it.

Kakashi visibly swallows.

The alpha is having a difficult time relaxing, and he keeps staring at Iruka, seeming mystified at what’s going on here, what’s going on between them. Feeling like he’s trying to tame a mangy street dog, Iruka runs his hand through Kakashi’s hair several times, drawing down the spikes, flattening them out. He works to keep his eyes and expression soft and welcoming – make it non-threatening – this is an active ANBU, this is an elite jōnin, this is an alpha right after his rut.

Something about his care works.

He’s not sure what does it.

But it’s obvious when it happens, because Kakashi’s shoulders slump, and he…

Ah, fuck.

The man leans into Iruka’s palm, keeping his grey eye on Iruka’s face.

That earlier heart-backflip, the one that made Iruka feel faint and successful at the same time, is dwarfed by what happens now. His chest seems to be the weakest thing in existence, seems as fragile as scroll paper. His heart is practicing high-level taijutsu, trying to break out of his ribcage. He feels his eyes involuntarily flutter, unable to hold their gaze steady: hope and concern meld together deep within him as he and Kakashi look at one another in silence.

Out of nowhere, Kakashi asks, his voice rough from sleep, “Where did you get it?”

Before Iruka can wonder what that means, he sees the other man glance down just an inch. 

Oh, he’s… talking about…

Iruka tentatively resumes petting Kakashi’s cheek and his messy hair. He doesn’t tell many people this story, but their relationship is different, so he’ll make an exception and not wait years before he gets drunk and tells the tragic story while blitzed out of his mind.

“She just lost her mate, and my mother couldn’t get in front of me fast enough,” he says quietly, his eyes drifting down Kakashi’s own facial scar, so much lighter than his own. “I was about two. The medic-nin saved my life, but the wound left this behind. The omega – she never recovered. She was put down by ANBU.” He touches smooth skin on Kakashi’s right cheekbone, where his is so badly scarred. He’s unable to meet the man’s single-eyed gaze as he concludes, soft but steady, “She was crying the whole time, saying her alpha’s name. That’s all I really remember... how sad she was.”

Kakashi is soundless; his breathing is inaudible. 

It’s suddenly uncomfortable… shit, Iruka shouldn’t have shared this. 

He starts to squirm away, but Kakashi’s arm is still around his back. Yet the alpha holds him still, doesn’t let him get away. It’s not clear if it’s instinctive, or if Kakashi means to keep him in place. When Iruka dares to glance at the man’s face, he’s about two seconds too slow, because –

Because, all of a sudden, the jōnin shows his rank.

The speed in which he moves is unreal. It’s completely unseen. But the outcome is obvious: Iruka is abruptly underneath Kakashi, who is fully crouched over him and staring out the window over the bed. A hot flashing killing intent is suffocating the life out of the room. It’s so painful that Iruka feels his throat close up, and he nonsensically grasps at his neck, unable to catch his breath. He can only see that now-familiar tapestry of scars, some new and pink, some old and grey, on Kakashi’s chest right above his face, but he can tell from the angle that the alpha is shielding him, staring at something outside the window.

Whatever it is – whoever it is – Iruka can’t perceive it. 

He _can_ tell he’s going to fucking die on this mattress if Kakashi doesn’t stop –

As if noticing Iruka’s discomfort, Kakashi reigns in his killing intent, snapping it back all at once.

There’s a heavy pause, then…

The jōnin alpha adjusts and looks down at Iruka. The Sharingan is back on display. Those two eyes shred through Iruka, make him weak and desperate; he is well aware that the man is nude, on top of him, and they just fucked the night before. He’s confused as hell, because he knows this position, and he… he looks up at Kakashi, wondering what the other man might be thinking.

“I have to go,” Kakashi announces without inflection.

Iruka tries not to be devastated. He tries to remind himself this was expected.

He watches as Kakashi moves gracefully from bed and dresses himself. It’s only then that Iruka tosses a look back at his bedroom window, but he finds nothing unusual waiting for them. Obviously there had just been an ANBU there, peering inside his bedroom, seeking out the village legend Kakashi of the Sharingan, needing him for some top-secret mission. Embarrassment should probably make its way up Iruka’s spine, lodge like a shuriken in his heart or skull, but actually… he secretly feels a little pleased.

Yes… _he_ enticed Kakashi Hatake. Now someone else knows. 

Someone besides the two of them.

Then Kakashi is outside his window, holding onto the side of the building. He’s impeccably dressed, like last night and this morning were only fever dreams. But there’s a weight behind the jōnin’s stare as he lingers on the wall and looks at Iruka, nude in bed, tangled in the sheets.

Just before he disappears, Kakashi says, the comment simple but meaning so, so much.

“I like your scar.”

He’s gone less than a second later. 

Iruka tries to go about his life like he’s not floating on air. Of course, his students notice, because children are terrifyingly observant. They are also frighteningly blunt, asking him (1) does he have a mate? (2) why doesn’t he have a mate? (3) does he know [x] family secret? The pre-genin range in shinobi talent and ability, but, wow, they’re all way-too-willing to tell him about “Mom gets lonely when Dad goes on missions, but then she visits the neighbor, and she makes Mom really happy!” and “My parents aren’t mates because Daddy says Mommy has commitment issues” and “My mom died last year defending the village, Dad never plays ball with me any more, he just sits and cries, can **we** play, Iruka-sensei?”

It’s a whirlwind – teaching at the Academy.

However, when it’s not so wild, Iruka thinks about Kakashi.

Days pass, but… he’s still thinking about Kakashi just as much, constantly thinking about the time they spent together. He feels a little bit of nervous excitement each time he remembers the man’s behavior during his last rut and the next morning, cuddling, gazing at him: it seems so surreal, that he’s spent such intimate time with an alpha, and that the alpha is Kakashi Hatake. 

After all - they don’t feel anything towards each other. 

There’s no pheromones directing them together. There’s no hormonal pull. 

But… it does feel like something is happening. It’s down deep in Iruka’s heart. It’s making him smile this little wavy, wobbly smile that he does every once and a while without thinking. His students keep tattling on him and his scatterbrained smile to the other teachers, which provokes a very shitty encounter with his old childhood friend, Mizuki, who has recently joined him at the Academy. The man’s a beta, which he lords over omega and alpha, a fucking weird thing to do, but some betas are like that, proud and haughty that hormones don’t affect them.

“You’re acting like someone’s fucking you,” Mizuki finally says nine days after Kakashi said he liked Iruka’s scar. He says it in this way that’s snide and condescending, making Iruka feel like a man who’d spread his legs if the enemy had a big cock and decent pheromones. 

“Language,” Iruka snaps at him as the pre-genin in their classes keep practice kunai throwing. His scarred face burns, though. He _is_ acting like someone’s fucking him: Kakashi Hatake is fucking him. They’ve only been together twice, once in Iruka’s heat, once in Kakashi’s rut, but…

Mizuki’s scowling at him and staring straight at him. “You _are_ getting fucked! It’s an alpha, isn’t it?” His tone drips with disgust, like Iruka is so stupid for falling into primitive instinct. Does he think that Iruka should be with a beta? That’s not how it works: alphas and omega are locked in evolutionary obsession, and betas stay on the side, doing what they want. 

When Iruka doesn’t respond, refusing to look at his so-called friend, Mizuki shakes his head. He’s repulsed by Iruka in a way that he hasn’t been before, but then again, they’re both eighteen now, and this is the first time that Iruka has really gone steady with –

The idea hits him, knocks him sideways.

_First time going steady with someone?_

Oh God.

Is Kakashi his sex partner?

Are they steady sex partners?

How could they be? They don’t feel – they don’t have any instinctive – they’re hormonally dead to one another - 

Mizuki’s grotesquely relishing the panicked look on Iruka’s face. He gives a smarmy smile as he remarks bitingly, “Oh, did you just realize you’re only a hole to him? Don’t be so pathetic, Iruka. It’s not a good look.” 

As Iruka starts to say something in defense, his jaw dropping, his expression filling with fury, Mizuki slinks away, acting as if one of his students called after him. Of course, none of his kids did anything of the sort: they don’t seem to like their sensei, a real contrast to Iruka’s students, who idealize and idolize him. Still, he feels very stupid and young as he stands alone watching pre-genin throw kunai at the target dummies. This is one of those moments where he could use a friend, a real friend, or maybe… maybe even his parents… but… but.

A flash of fire flicks over his vision.

Orange. Red. Flame.

He winces.

No, his parents are dead. He’s all alone in the world, and that’s just fine. It really is fine.

Restless, Iruka scratches at his scar… and wonders where Kakashi might be.

A hopeless question sinks through his soul.

_Is it possible Kakashi is thinking about him, too?_


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm genuinely glad you exist. Thank you for reading. Your comments are so lovely and inspirational... I truly appreciate your thoughts. <3
> 
> ___

He keeps thinking about killing his ANBU teammate.

She’s the one from before – the one who has twice shown interest in Iruka. Although she’s a good shinobi and a comrade, Kakashi watches her day and night while they’re on their mission, a single thought running in his head. _She saw Iruka. She saw Iruka. She saw Iruka._ He’s inexperienced with overwhelming jealousy, but he recognizes it, having felt it before when this particular omega’s been involved. The mission is a two-week stint ten miles outside the village. Too many alphas from other villages have been visiting Konoha, unannounced and unwanted. Their entire job is to blockade alphas – friendly, enemy, missing nin, it doesn’t matter – from pilfering Konoha omegas, starting fights with Konoha alphas, and scaring the life out of Konoha betas.

The Hokage sent word because a glittery-eyed alpha disrupted a beta wedding.

She had no interest in the two betas marrying. However, the best man had started his heat… 

Her courtship display was a shower of sharp knives, their bright steel matching her eyes. 

Apparently a few dozen betas were injured, including children and civilians, so Hiruzen ordered his ANBU out into the wild, commanding them to stave off alphas on the hunt for a few weeks.

_She saw Iruka._

He saw it happen fast as lightning. The other ANBU was at the window, readying to tap glass. Her eyes first went to Kakashi, the mission dominating her thoughts. Yet her alpha instincts flared: she noticed Iruka, his bare shoulders, his open expression, and her eyes dilated, and she shifted her chin in consideration of the unmated omega. It didn’t matter that Kakashi was present, not when it came to such a primitive instinct, the ceaseless need to secure a mate. 

He’d long known about alphas fighting each other in pursuit of an omega, especially an omega in heat, when they’re most receptive and welcoming of a partner. The competition for certain omegas could be fierce. Even though Kakashi has never participated in such pathetic jousts, he’s seen them throughout his life. He’s always thought of them as a mix of pitiful and idiotic. 

At first, he didn’t seem to be thinking anything as he covered Iruka with his body. 

But actually…

He was thinking **I.will.gouge.out.your.eyes.** as he interrupted the other ANBU’s display.

She froze in place, now seeing only him. Time seemed to slow. She’d never seen his bare face before, but her attention was not fixed on his skin but instead on the Sharingan. He could feel the dōjutsu raging angry in his skull – yet the anguish of its overuse seemed ephemeral. He knows all of her jutsus from their many missions together, and he could use them against her, and she would be dead in a fucking instant, thus she would never again behold Iruka Umino.

Underneath him, Iruka made a weird little sound.

Oh, the man can’t breathe.

Because -

Kakashi only noticed that he was spreading killing intent because he’s so sensitive to Iruka’s sounds. Not wanting to upset Iruka any further, he stopped it entirely. The decision unintentionally alleviated the stress of his ANBU teammate, who consequentially sunk down the wall, her chakra control slipping, her feet unable to hold onto the building. She looked away from him, the whites of her eyes matching the porcelain; she waved the hand-sign for MISSION, following it with NOW. 

Then she dropped out of view.

He looked down at Iruka, who went from scared to confused to wanton in an instant.

Kakashi’s alpha instincts were still up, which was unnerving. He doesn’t understand why he suddenly thought about ignoring the mission call. He just wanted to stay in bed all day, licking and sucking between Iruka’s thighs until the man passed out from pleasure. Hungry need was in the omega’s expression, but there was something else, too, something that Kakashi still can’t define. 

Nonetheless, he said he has to go, he got dressed, he turned to give a proper farewell.

You know, since last time he left Iruka without saying goodbye.

But…

Damn.

Iruka was giving him _that look_ \- the one he can’t understand.

He looked at the man’s scar, thought about the story of the omega with the dead mate. As ANBU, Kakashi has done the terrible deed of ending a Konoha nin’s life for that reason. He’s done it a few times. Not all bonded alphas and omegas lose their mind when their mates die, but some do. Shinobi in particular respond poorly; they often act violently and not always against themselves. Although most of his scars are from those who want to destroy Konoha, he has several from distraught fellow nin, their hearts broken, their minds fragmented into pieces.

He can imagine the scene Iruka described.

It’s a damn shame it happened to him, but then again…

Iruka is beautiful.

His scar is beautiful.

So he said, “I like your scar,” and left on his mission with the alpha he wants to kill.

It’s days and days of _She saw Iruka_. He could be punching a Snow alpha in the face – he could be kneeing an Iron alpha in the groin – he could be knocking out a Sand alpha with a borrowed Leaf Hurricane kick – but Kakashi’s always aware of his ANBU teammate, that she’s still alive, that she’s still unbonded, that _she saw Iruka._ He watches her in silence around the campfire. He’s not sleeping very well; he keeps wondering if she’ll sneak off to see…

Day Nine is when it seems quite sane to send a shadow clone to guard Iruka.

The clone may look and act just like him, but, after learning its task, it becomes greatly amused at his expense. After preening a little, pretending to pretty itself up for a courtship display, the living jutsu picks a leaf out of Kakashi’s hair and spins the greenery on its fingertip. “Sure, I’ll take care of him,” it purrs, its grey eye much shinier than its creator’s. When Kakashi frowns behind his mask at the suggestion, the shadow clone shuriken-throws the leaf in the air and promises more seriously, “I won’t let anyone bother him. He won’t even know I’m there.”

Then the leaf is gone, and so is the clone.

Day Ten passes fine. Kakashi is still thinking about killing his teammate, but that’s normal now.

Day Eleven seems the same as the others. There’s the daily alpha roaming down the road; they fight with her for an hour and eventually send her back to the Land of Sound, bruised and limping. He’s chewing a ration bar, leaning against a tree, contemplating white clouds. The other ANBU is wrapping white bandages around her forearm, where the Sound alpha literally blew a poisoned dart through armor, cloth, skin, and muscle. She’s not sick from the poison: they have a whole host of antidotes and immunities at this point in their ANBU-jōnin journeys.

They don’t talk very much at all. 

She seems to understand he’s not happy with her.

He starts to take another bite of the bar.

Then – 

Memories hit him like a meteor crashing into the planet.

_Running back to Konoha. Locating Iruka teaching at the Academy. Sitting in a tree. Watching Iruka teach. Assessing a silver-haired sensei who stops by and bothers Iruka. Deciding to hate the silver-haired sensei. Following Iruka back home. Sitting in a different tree. Not sleeping. Considering putting up wards on Iruka’s apartment. Stopping the instinct to do so, knowing it’ll expose presence. Flipping through book. Reading that one chapter over again, mmm, this author is a wordsmith._

_Good. Iruka’s awake. Observing him fail at cooking breakfast. Following Iruka to the Academy. Watching Iruka teach. Noticing the silver-haired sensei stop by to criticize Iruka again. Seeing Iruka flush and snap at him. Pondering when to intervene on their argument. Stepping off the tree branch, deciding now’s the right time. Flickering away when a pre-genin girl notices him. Begin to hang out in a different tree. Aiming a shuriken between the silver-haired sensei’s eyebrows from across the playground just in case. Pausing when Iruka points at the door, sending the other sensei away. Preparing to follow Iruka home at the end of a long day._

_Oh. Iruka looks unwell. Jumping down to the ground to shadow the omega as he staggers home. He crouches by a tree, the first tree used for surveillance. Sweat is everywhere. His dark skin is even darker. It’s rosier, reddening. Iruka is shaking and has one hand on the tree, using it for stability. The other hand is on his face, half-covering his scar. Is he emanating omega pheromones now? Could he be? It’s impossible to tell. No internal hormonal reaction to the omega. Rising discomfort. Unable to confirm what seems otherwise apparent. Deciding to intervene -_

_“I can take you home, Iruka-sensei.”_

_Iruka lifts his gaze to catch sight of who is speaking. His eyes widen in recognition. His face is darkly flushed. He smells of sweat and the start of sex. His omega collar shows black and leather under the blue shinobi shirt and his green flak jacket. He accepts the offered hand after a moment’s pause. He stands up, permits an arm around his waist. He’s staring at -_

_“You’re a shadow clone.”_

_Surprised. Very surprised. Can’t stop himself from saying -_

_“How did you –”_

Twenty miles outside Konoha, the real Kakashi stiffens, because the shadow clone’s memory heightens considerably as –

His face burning, his body shuddering, Iruka twists the clone’s flak jacket in his clenched fist. Their scars nearly touch as the omega wrenches the shadow clone closer. Then, terrifyingly sharp-tongued, Iruka seethes, his eyes focusing beyond the clone, seemingly at Kakashi himself:

“I want the real thing. **Get. Here. Now.** ”

The clone disperses instantly.

Next, Kakashi’s flying through the summoning: he’s ignoring the other ANBU’s sudden questions. The eight ninken appear in a cloud of smoke; they’re quickly on all fours, expecting a fight. Instead, he’s shouting his order over his shoulder, stretching his legs, starting to jog down the road, “Stay here and help her. The mission ends at midnight.”

The jog turns into a run, then a sprint, and soon he can see Konoha, so he uses a Body Flicker jutsu to complete the last stage.

As fucking usual, Iruka’s apartment doesn’t have any wards up. As Kakashi stumbles through the bedroom window, tripping on his way inside, he brutally forces barrier jutsu into place. It’s ugly and rudimentary, but it shines an electric blue and sings with his chakra, noisy and alive. He barely perceives the wards; his senses are all agitatedly seeking Iruka. There’s not the slightest sign of omega pheromones in the air, it’s the same as always, this thing between them.

It makes Kakashi crazy.

Crazier than usual.

He finds Iruka languishing across a futon on the living room. The omega is shirtless, his pants are down low and hugging his hips. The fucking irritating collar is still there, encircling his neck. Iruka has thrown an arm over his face, hiding his scar, burying his blush. He’s breathing heavily. 

Kakashi can’t tell he’s in heat - not in the traditional way. 

There’s no omega hormones making him lose his mind.

Since he’s not primitively restricted by his alpha instincts, he doesn’t stay away.

He doesn’t keep a respectful distance.

Instead, Kakashi’s on his knees, half-leaning over Iruka, pulling the man’s arm aside. Their eyes meet like the whole world’s on fire. The Sharingan’s open, absorbing everything below him. 

Iruka is alluringly rough as he reprimands Kakashi.

“You’re late.”

For a moment, Kakashi thinks they didn’t have a standing appointment… that they didn’t agree on seeing each other during Iruka’s next heat.

But then again.

Of course they’ve reunited.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all had me blushing the last 48 hours with your comments on the last chapter. Thank you so much. You are beautifully kind. Your words make me happy to be alive. Please enjoy this chapter.
> 
> ___

_“He’s going to leave you.”_

Iruka feels so conflicted while looking up at Kakashi. Mizuki’s words ring about his head like recurring musical notes. It’s been three days of the beta saying Iruka’s not worthy of a mate, that whoever’s been fucking him will soon abandon him. 

Shit, it’s possible his heat is early due to stress... he really can’t tell. 

Inexplicably, Kakashi’s still wearing his ANBU mask - and his entire ANBU uniform - and his shoes while inside of Iruka’s apartment. He’s never done that before. He’s usually always so polite…

Both of the alpha’s eyes are open, watching him, staring down at his body stretched across the futon. Iruka can see his reflection in the blood-red-and-black Sharingan. He appears struck low by hormonal heat. Desire burns through his scarred cheeks. Desperation swims in his dark eyes. 

Doubt has its hooks in him. He can’t stop thinking about Kakashi leaving him for a more suitable omega, one who he actually responds to, one with tempting pheromones, one biologically designed for an alpha like him. He sinks, delicate, distressed, further into the futon.

Then –

Startled incomprehension replaces angst as Kakashi lowers his fully-masked face closer to Iruka’s. 

All at once, Kakashi seems to remember his mask is still on. The alpha pulls back, clasps the ceramic by the eyeholes, and then tosses the prized object aside as if it means nothing to him. 

Iruka’s still staring in shock after the ANBU mask when Kakashi tenderly touches his scarred cheek. The sensation is so delightful that Iruka shivers from the tips of his toes to the tips of his ears, the cool crazy sliding over his overheated skin and frosting his boiling core. His face feels scorched, like he’s been burnt by a solar flare, but it positively _aches_ where Kakashi’s black-gloved fingertip strokes.

The alpha’s grey eye brightens upon the response. Black cloth covers his nose, mouth, jaw, throat. His ANBU tattoo shows pretty and strong on his skin; its red Konoha curls speak to some primal part of Iruka, the aspiring shinobi side of him that still worships heroes. The grey flak jacket grips Kakashi’s muscular body atop his black shirt, and Iruka wants it off him, he wants to yank it right the fuck off him, but he’s struck still and stupid by the man’s full ANBU appearance.

For reasons unknown, Kakashi seems equally enchanted by him. He’s not moving, he’s staying half-hovering over Iruka. Without the porcelain mask, his expression should be more visible, but it just holds unsteady surprise, like Kakashi didn’t think about his actions past this moment. 

So yet again –

They’re staring at each other in silence.

His heat’s crying to him, _this is an alpha, you know it’s an alpha, who cares that you can’t feel him the usual way, you know he’s an alpha, please, **please God** , reach up and grab him._

His rationality is so faded, shoved under want and need, that there’s almost nothing coherent crossing his brain, but the bit that remains whispers feverishly, _this is Kakashi, you know him, **you know him** , reach up and grab him!_

His memory’s shot to hell, but he hears Mizuki’s final horrid hiss out the door as clear as a God damn bell, _it won’t last, **he’ll leave you.**_

All three things rouse him.

Grabbing the top of Kakashi’s flak jacket, he forces him down until their chests are finally touching. He digs his fingers under the black mask over Kakashi’s cheek and drags it down the alpha’s throat - and then kisses him as hard as he possibly can, surging upward into the act. 

They haven’t kissed in two weeks.

They’ve never kissed during Iruka’s heat.

All his power is stolen by Kakashi – at least that’s what it feels like. He turns drunk and dumb and weak and disbelieving as Kakashi’s hand threads through his hair and ruins his ponytail, seizing the surviving strands with supernatural strength. There’s no escape, but he doesn’t want to go anywhere. He wants to dive deeper into Kakashi Hatake, alpha, ANBU, jōnin, man, and –

Oh, fuck it.

Shame from being seen so debauched seems real damn distant as he wrestles with Kakashi’s pants, forcefully indicating what he wants, what he wants right now. The result satisfies something sickly sweet inside him: Kakashi deftly, one-handedly, undoes his own belt, hauls down his clothing, and then does the same with Iruka’s, not stopping for a second while kissing him, sometimes with closed lips, sometimes with wet hot tongue searching for Iruka’s. 

They’re desperate, entangled madly on the futon. 

A flash of fiery insanity occurs as they lock eyes and the Sharingan.

A second passes.

Iruka pushes Kakashi away; the alpha pauses in place.

Just barely above his heartbeat, he can hear himself order: **“Take me.”**

Suddenly he’s face-down on the futon, his legs trapped by his pants at his knees, his back naturally arching he so badly wants to be fucked. Deliciously, Kakashi’s already there, he wants it, too. The feel of a heavy, hard cock between his cheeks – ah, _fuck_ \- Iruka can’t control himself, he whimpers one of those pitiful, pleading omega whimpers and crushes his face into the sheets. 

Behind him, Kakashi’s gripping his thighs, his ass, his hips, his lower back, but the sound does something sinister to the alpha, something that makes Iruka feel like he’s only succeeding in getting himself absolutely destroyed, because Kakashi’s hold on him quivers unstably, and then his entire cock is _inside_ Iruka the very next damn second, and Iruka’s thought about repressing his whimpers flies away, and he’s instead whining or gasping at each and every thrust of Kakashi deep into his warm welcoming body.

Kakashi’s gloved hands feel different grasping him, the alpha seems stronger somehow, more reckless and more fanatical, but Iruka feels abnormal this time, too - … even more abnormal considering what goes on between them. His lips feel lonely. He wants to see Kakashi’s face. He - _fuck!_ \- can’t get out the words for his sorry request, he’s choking on his strange plea. 

He thinks about how Kakashi almost bit his neck during his rut.

Kiss-bruised lips on his skin, teeth grazing, tongue caressing. 

It’s not a whimper, it’s not a gasp –

Now an almost-anguished moan rises from him, followed by a breathless…

_“Kakashi.”_

Then, just like that, he’s facing the man again. The change is so swift, Iruka feels dizzy, even nauseous, having been flipped over at such surreal speed, but then he sees Kakashi’s face again, the alpha gazing down at him with such devoted fixation, and all his worries melt away.

They’re kissing again, but this time Kakashi’s fucking him at the same time.

His arms burn from holding onto Kakashi’s shoulders and neck. His legs scream, being forced open and aside, making room for an obsessed alpha wanting to be so fully sheathed in him. His whole body feels like he’s standing in a fire-strewn battlefield, a blistering jutsu wrecking the landscape around him. 

Oh – _oh, fuck_ \- he loves this.

He wants – _no, needs_ \- this.

This hard hot thickness pressing into him, pounding into him, piercing him through.

This desperate sex with sweat - with slick – with sounds.

This alpha.

_This man._

His eyes roll back as he gasps into Kakashi’s ANBU-clothed neck, shuddering wildly.

Yet again, no one’s touching him, but he comes anyway, his strangled gasp becoming a sigh.

Like his last heat, Kakashi keeps it up a moment, then slows, then stops, then slips out of him. Iruka is gingerly placed back down on the futon; he winces after a while, rubbing at his brow and scar. He stops feeling roasted alive, his skin seems less blackened by the fury of their sex. 

Something’s touching his hair, gently moving it off his sweat-drenched face. He flutters open his eyes, barely able to think from being so thoroughly fucked. Very vaguely, Iruka realizes he’s holding onto fabric, coarse soaked fabric, and he looks there first, where his hands are, and –

Oh.

Oh God.

He’s death-gripping Kakashi’s grey ANBU jacket, keeping the man on top of him. The restraint would have been easy for the jōnin to break, but instead Kakashi remains perfectly in place. Beads of sweat curve down his pale face and trace the divot of his scar to his beauty mark. There’s a lovely light blush across his cheeks, and his grey eye is bright enough it seems to shine. 

The alpha is meticulously holding himself up in a one-armed plank over Iruka’s messy form. His ANBU black gloves and grey armguards may be disheveled, but they’re still tightly fastened to him. The rest of his clothes are much the same, in great disarray, but impressively hanging onto his frame, which, shit, doesn’t that say something about the tailors who make the ANBU attire?

In contrast to Kakashi’s full uniform, Iruka’s totally nude. 

Just like last time!

Kakashi may have his mask down, but he’s wearing his jacket and shoes, and -

Annoyance races through him: he can feel himself wanting to glower up at Kakashi. But then he remembers, horrifically, that there was a much more important disparity between them that he so deeply loathed during his last heat –

Fucking hell.

Pure rage sears through him. Without giving any warning, his hand drops from Kakashi’s flak jacket to the alpha’s perpetually-hard cock. The steady slightly sated look on the man’s face vanishes. Tension whips through Kakashi. He goes stiff all-over - and then he – and then he –

His eye squeezes shut, and so does the Sharingan.

His chest does a peculiar heave, and his lips part in a silent pant, and –

Iruka’s fury dissipates into awe: he stares up in slack-jawed worship at the alpha above him.

Thoughtless thrill rushes through his hot veins. His hand moves on its own, tightening around Kakashi and stroking him, hard, fast, eager, because he can’t get enough of the gorgeous thing in his sudden obsessive grip. The alpha can’t seem to figure out what to do, he’s got one shaking hand in the air by Iruka’s scarred cheek, he’s maintaining the plank with one arm and his legs over Iruka, but his hips are unstable and his multiply-armored chest is moving rapidly. 

Both his eyes suddenly open. His Sharingan burns a brilliant red. His grey eye gleams.

Iruka watches pleasure flood the man; he feels Kakashi’s cock tense in his hand.

He himself gasps aloud as the alpha shudders just once.

One little tremble, that’s it, that’s the sign that –

He almost glances away to see Kakashi come on him in the act of obscenely marking Iruka.

But he’s so relieved he doesn’t, because now he watches as the man above him stares into his soul and breathes out one small, soft word:

_“Iruka.”_


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all are good people, and you should know that.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Your words mean the world.
> 
> ____

This omega – this man.

He is pushing Kakashi to his very limits.

A few hours before dawn, Iruka slows down fucking the life out of Kakashi. He doesn’t stop entirely, though. No, that would be a relief, and clearly Iruka does not believe Kakashi deserves any sort of reprieve. Instead, the chūnin betrays his rank and denies any sweet sensei imagery. 

It’s their fourth time together – and Kakashi has had to keep Iruka’s hands off his cock twice – when he notices Iruka’s reactions are finally slowing. The man’s eyes are becoming tired, his hands less determined. The rosy hormone-flush on his face, through his scar, seems to be fading as his skin returns to the usual brown tone. He’s much easier to maneuver down to the futon from his position atop Kakashi, his gasps become so much softer, the scene between them starts to shift in a strange surreal way…

Iruka’s exhausted, but he never looks away from Kakashi, not even as his heat ends.

Their gazes seem gentle now as the darkness flows over them. Without lights on in Iruka’s apartment and the curtains fully drawn, they can barely see, but they still look at each other’s night-soft features. The rushed sex of the last six hours has become restful… Iruka’s eyes remain on Kakashi’s as they keep an easy rhythm. The omega’s arms hang over Kakashi’s bare shoulders, his fingers now caressing rather than digging into Kakashi’s scarred back. 

During their second round tonight, Iruka undressed him with a horrendous scowl on his face, and Kakashi submitted to the change, not totally understanding what was so wrong. 

But now… he realizes Iruka likes their skin touching… and… well… he does, too. 

This can’t be called fucking, what they’re doing now.

Iruka looks close to falling asleep, but he’s so resolved to be here, in the moment. The soft intensity of the man’s stare is commanding, and Kakashi can’t seem to force them to climax. He’s not sure how long they’ve been like this, this relaxed motion of their bodies joining over and over again in the night. He’s unbelievably aware that he could do this for hours, that he probably _has_ done this for hours, that he could continue doing this for the rest of…

The omega reaches up and kisses him right on his beauty mark.

Kakashi has his pride, but he also knows he has limited stamina. Chakra reserves and sexual endurance spring from the same space – or, at least, that’s what it seems to him. While he has average chakra reserves, he knows over a thousand jutsus, and he aims for a thousand more, so he knows what to do here as well. Each of his past experiences with omegas has proven the original concern – omegas, especially in heat, are so inexhaustible that Kakashi has to purposefully pace himself. He knows this isn’t about him, anyway, even when he’s caught up in the crazy of an omega’s hormonal pull… so… he restrains himself. 

He holds back. He stops the rise of pleasure. He withholds orgasmic thrill. 

After all, omegas can go for hours when in heat. He can’t and won’t abandon them in their need.

Also, it’s likely alpha instinct directs him towards restraint, fearing omegas will leave him.

So… it’s an automatic habit now.

But Iruka seems lethally pissed whenever he controls himself when they’re together. Like, **I-will-murder-you-and-burn-your-corpse** pissed. Kakashi knows he has felt killing intent both during Iruka’s last heat and this time, too. It’s a dreadfully confusing thing to have homicidal wrath directed at him before Iruka _then_ grabs his cock and gets him off – but thankfully, the omega has left him untouched during the last two times that he’s reached _his_ relief.

This seems to be the last round, though, and he knows it. 

They both know it.

Iruka’s lips shadow over Kakashi’s scar. His voice is raspy, his demeanor dreamy. His words are barely heard, they’re almost swallowed up by the darkness, but Kakashi’s senses are still alert.

The man whispers Kakashi’s name like he’s saying a prayer.

Even while bone-weary, Kakashi feels what’s inside it, behind it, underneath it. 

He can’t find enough restraint: he bows his head as pleasure is pulled from him as if by a thief. 

In that mysterious way unique to Iruka Umino, the omega huffs a laugh against his silver hair, and then he’s tensing, too, just a little, just enough to show that he’s found it a fourth time.

There’s the same slow bodily separation as happened at the end of Iruka’s last heat. Like before, Kakashi brings the omega into the shower and cleans him in a soldierly style, knowing Iruka will tend to himself better in the morning. He does the same for himself, much quicker, though, and much more efficient. At this point, Iruka has gone quiet, keeping his eyes closed most of the time. Only very rarely does the omega rally the strength to look seriously at Kakashi, and it’s almost always momentary without any thought behind it.

After Kakashi sets Iruka into bed and the man sleepily nuzzles his pillow – well, it’s time to go.

He’s already redressed in ANBU gear; he had to search a while for his mask. His hair’s dripping wet. His body’s sore. His Sharingan has started to feel like someone’s dug into his skull with a knife. Yes… it’s time to go. He has to speak to the Hokage… He has to find his ANBU partner and apologize… He’s nearly out of the bedroom, but then… something tells him to turn around, and so he does.

Iruka’s watching him leave.

Kakashi feels like grieving.

The dark streets of Konoha have never seemed so lonely… which should be impossible… he’s struggled through suicide and murder and sacrifice… 

Death has walked with him so often that it’s almost become an eternal escort. Always taking his loved ones, leading him, and then leaving him. 

The long looks of other alphas his way cause him to glare back out from the corner of his eye. His eyelid is so heavy over the Sharingan; his ANBU mask seems to weigh as much as the Hokage Rock. Every step is labored, every intake of breath difficult. His brain is distant, detached, deadened. 

Maybe he should have... 

He could have…

The ANBU locker room isn’t empty even though it’s well before dawn. There’s a three-man team recently returned from a mission, a bonded alpha and two unmarried betas. The medical-nin has the ninjutsu specialist’s leg outstretched on a bench, sewing copper stitches into a partially healed wound. They must have been given the same two-week order to defend Konoha… They look up, recognizing Kakashi in the mask. Everyone’s silent as he puts his ANBU uniform away and redresses out of their prying sight. He returns to the same room, blankly wrapping white bandages around his leg, when the alpha ANBU remarks in a sly, callous tone:

“Out chasing tail, Hound?”

Kakashi turns his head to the man. He’s staring at the other alpha, not saying a word. He had known the brief shower he took at Iruka’s was not enough to erase the omega pheromones.

But.

He can’t smell Iruka’s lingering scent.

Not on the man. Not on himself.

Apparently, he’s still covered in Iruka.

Yet his heart is heavy and his one eye dreary. He has no motivation to respond, and so he does not. Silently disregarding the team and its salacious alpha, he heads to the place he knew he’d have to go the moment he stepped out of Iruka’s apartment and locked the door behind him.

He stands in front of Hiruzen’s office, ignoring the several hidden ANBU prickling at his presence.

They must smell Iruka on him.

… he wishes he could, too.

It’s another hour before Hiruzen allows him inside. The Hokage’s judgmental eyes follow Kakashi from under the iconic hat as he steps inside and stands at attention. Whether he wants to do it or not, Kakashi is still slouching, out of habit and due to the incredible physical pain from surviving Iruka’s heat and two weeks on a tough mission. 

He’s unthinking as he waits for punishment.

… a blurry vision of Iruka in bed, looking after him, mourning his absence.

Hiruzen says very little. There’s the standard line of ‘unacceptable behavior.’ There’s ‘something could have happened to her.’ There’s ‘you disappoint not only me, but the village.’ 

Kakashi feels empty.

He nods, lowering his gaze to the ground.

As Hiruzen dismisses him, he’s slow to leave, having expected worse.

The statement is said so sharply it sends spikes up Kakashi’s spine.

“Don’t toy with him.”

Yet when Kakashi looks back at the Hokage, his Hokage – Hiruzen’s examining paperwork, like nothing at all was ever said aloud. The words rake across Kakashi like keen metal blades. A painful jolt of sudden energy courses through him: his breathing seems stressed, it rapidly becomes unmanageable. 

That’s not what –

That’s not what they’re doing.

He’s halfway home when his ANBU partner slides out of the darkness like a swift silvery owl. She doesn’t look injured, let alone dead, but Kakashi feels like he’s seeing a phantom. He watches as his eight ninken emerge beside her: they don’t show the slightest sign of exertion. 

One by one, they come up to him, expecting and deserving pets. He does so attentively, his enthusiasm and appreciation growing with each of their heads and ears felt under his hands. 

Pakkun is last to disperse. The pug eyes him shrewdly and says, short, to the point, “We’ll talk.” Then he goes with the rest of his kin into the other realm, leaving Kakashi and the other ANBU.

She’s soundless, but so is he.

It’s not supposed to be a standoff, but they’re both tired, and it becomes one.

Eventually, Kakashi looks aside to the stars above them. “Thank you,” he murmurs. “I hope it wasn’t a problem.” He knows she, as an alpha, can smell Iruka’s lustful pheromones on him. She must have known as he ran away from her, ran towards Iruka, what was happening, but still…

She waits a moment before asking him, sincere, pointed, “Are you going to bond with him?”

Kakashi’s grey eye is so anguished - he’s barely blinked the last eight hours. But this new pain makes his eye water. He refuses to look back down to see the other ANBU, the other alpha. 

But he does reply to her, his face masked, his expression flat, his tone cold.

“That’s up to him.”

It’s enough. It’s also too much. 

He walks away, unable to do anything else.

… he thinks of Iruka sleeping alone.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, you are all so kind, I just had to update for you ASAP! I've just been so floored by your response. And, yes, to be clear, I do read your comments and adjust the story based on your feedback! So please know that you are absolutely making a difference in the direction of this story. <3
> 
> ____

Ah, shit.

He’s hungover. No, he’s still drunk. Or… wait. This is… shit, is this…?

Iruka stumbles out of bed, has to grab the wall to hold himself up. His body groans, not wanting to move, now or ever. His thighs are tight, radiate an indistinct warmth. He wobbles on his way to the kitchen, desperately parched, hunting for water. The sunrise hasn’t hit yet. There’s the futon, in a neat pile, in the living room. There’s his pants and boxer-briefs placed on the side. 

He fumbles with the cabinet, gets a glass out. The sound of running water from the faucet is too loud, way too fucking loud. _His body hurts._ The room seems richer, vibrant, the colors are off. He’s so fucking groggy, he’s so fucking disoriented. Water clears out his rough throat. He can feel it slide down his pained esophagus and pool in his stomach, cool and alleviating. 

He leans against the fridge, resting his forehead on it; he’s holding the empty glass in one hand.

This is a heat hangover. Normally he sleeps through this part. This is when it still feels like the heat is ongoing, but it’s actually not. Instead, his body’s falling back to normal hormonal levels, and his muscles are revolting against him, infuriated that he so abused them during his self-sex.

Ah, but, shit.

He… wasn’t alone this heat, was he?

A flash of Kakashi, lovely, nude, in the shower with him, dabbing at Iruka’s bare throat.

When did he lose the collar? He racks his badly abused brain. Kakashi was wearing too many clothes, and he was mad about that, and then he… unsnapped his collar and threw it… where?

He surveys the living room, doesn’t easily spot the collar. 

He doesn’t find the alpha, either. 

Oh… Iruka winces, closes his eyes tight. He really wanted Kakashi to stay, but he couldn’t get the words out, so he just looked at him silently, hoping the other man would understand. Of course, Kakashi just gazed back at him, grey eye dull, and went out the front door. It was the first time he’s left that way, but ah, so what? Last time, during Iruka’s last heat, during their first time together, the alpha had waited until Iruka fell asleep before he vanished. But hadn’t things changed between them? Hadn’t Kakashi stayed after his rut only two weeks ago?

Iruka doesn’t even register why he’s doing it, but suddenly he’s pressed over the sink, throwing up.

He paws at his hair, trying to get out of the way; his face contorts, his hand’s on his stomach. Oh, God, he hasn’t eaten enough. He’s burned through thousands of calories during his heat, and his body is getting sick, protesting overwork and rioting against his basic effort to stand and breathe. There’s a few more heaves into the drain, but it’s just the water he’s recently downed. He bends over the sink, now resting his forehead on the metal, trying to calm his upset insides. 

But maybe it’s not the heat-hungover, maybe that’s not the reason he feels sick.

Kakashi didn’t stay. 

He left. He left again. 

Ah… he really will leave Iruka one day, won’t he?

_Maybe this was it._ Maybe this was their last time together. It happens. You speak to someone for the last time, not knowing it’s your final conversation. Just like his final breakfast with his parents… he didn’t know that was the last time they’d ever be together, see his mother smile, watch his father look longingly after her. He didn’t think to turn around and wave goodbye to them as he headed out to play with friends. They’d see each other for lunch, and dinner, and the next day, and the day after that, and for weeks, months, years, decades, except.

Except no.

He never saw his parents again. Not like that. In their home. Happy. Together. Alive.

Iruka’s crouching down now, he’s holding onto the cabinets under the sink. Fragments of memory try to wheedle back into his thoughts, but they’re out of order, he can’t organize them correctly. Kakashi, doubly-masked, on the training field, taking in deep breaths against Iruka’s neck, seemingly seeking out Iruka for his omega self. Kakashi, so swift, so perfectly brutal, killing the enemy alpha in the road, his Sharingan alight with power. Kakashi, in the hallway, on his knees, fucking Iruka for the first time, his shinobi strength unreal and unapologetic. Kakashi, in the mission room closet, on his knees, during his rut, desperate for Iruka to be down his throat.

Ha. What… was all that… God, just what have they been doing?

Feeling broken inside, he sees something odd his kitchen floor.

A little piece of white.

He stretches out his fingers, reaching for it. He puts it in the palm of his hand.

Ah. It’s…

It’s porcelain.

It’s a tiny bit of Kakashi’s ANBU mask. The alpha chipped it when he threw the mask so they could kiss. Tossing his identity aside, just like that, so easily, so carelessly. And for what reason? For who?

Mm. Not for Iruka. No. Not for him.

He’s moving slowly back down the hall, passes where they first had sex during his heat. He’s walking by where Kakashi stood, apologized, where they kissed for the first time. He’s laying down in the bed where Kakashi licked him, where he touched Kakashi so tenderly, where he was almost bit by an alpha and where they almost formed a bond out of rut-crazed irrationality.

He can’t smell Kakashi anywhere. The thing between them – hormonal deadness - is constant. It’s pure hell.

But in his palm sits the porcelain. 

It has jagged edges, it hurts him a little.

Ah. He loves it. This little sliver of Kakashi Hatake.

He must have fallen asleep, because soon dawn pours through his window and wakes him up. There’s less soreness now that the heat hangover has progressed through its usual horror. His stomach hurts from vomiting up nothing, and his body suffers like he’s been taijutsu training. The answer is, of course, as always, pain medication, a quick healing jutsu, and burnt breakfast. He’s fiddling with the porcelain in his hand, thinking about Kakashi’s last look back at him. The man has such a defined face, even behind cloth and ceramic, but it’s his eye that always betrays his true identity to Iruka. He can’t sense him as an alpha in any way, but Iruka _sees_ him. 

On the training field, concealed behind his ANBU mask – yes, that’s Kakashi. 

Iruka knows that eye, the intelligence behind it, the charm, the intrigue.

And his shadow clone – that’s not the real thing, that’s a pale imitation, a ghostly shade. 

If only they were really omega and alpha to each other, then maybe Iruka could truly, fully entice the man… the jōnin, the ANBU. Appeal to his hardwired hormonal instincts. Get him to stay the night. Fascinate him enough that they repeat what they had those last few minutes together… when their rough fucking, once so desperate and wild and bruising, became gentle and tender and…

Iruka sighs, putting his head in his hands over the table. 

Shit. What is he doing. They can’t be together. They don’t fit together. 

They’re not made for each other.

He showers more thoroughly, knowing he has Kakashi still on him, even if he can’t sense it. After dressing, he checks for visible bruises: none should show in his shinobi uniform, but there’s many underneath. His arms ache as he ties back his hair and snaps on a brand-new omega collar. Lingering scents from his heat might pull some stray alpha. Considering he feels too weak to glare away an exceptionally strong one, he’s got to wear this collar for now, since his favorite one disappeared to wherever he flung it last night during his heat with – ah, with -

On purpose, Iruka pulls back his shoulders, determining to himself he won’t be a wimp, or a pitiful omega mess, or anything less than a chūnin of Konoha and a sensei of the Academy. 

Yes, he can make it. Through today. Through this whole damn thing.

Ah, Kakashi’s gleaming grey eye, locked on his, as they made love last night.

No. No, no, no. That’s. That’s not. That’s out of the question. That is unnatural, it’s not real.

_Shake it off, damn you._

_**Stop thinking about him.** _

He opens the front door, preparing to walk to work, greeting the day, watching the dawn.

\- - and he steps right on Kakashi.

\- - - which causes him to trip, stumble forward, and hit the railing, all while he’s swinging back around, wide-eyed and filled with frantic confusion. Automatically his concerns churn over into searching for wounds, he’s inspecting the pathway for fresh blood, he’s looking for torn cloth and exposed ripped-apart pale skin, he’s already flickering his fingers through a healing jutsu.

But.

But… no. 

Kakashi’s not injured. He _is_ completely unconscious though. Not from being sick, that seems obvious: the man is curled like a cat where a civilian would put a welcome mat. He’s not in his ANBU uniform anymore but his jōnin attire, including the blue mask extension that covers half his face, entirely screening the beauty mark. His headband is over the Sharingan, almost too far down, nearly revealing the other silver eyebrow that Iruka has only seen during sex… or that one time, after Kakashi’s rut, when he stayed the night, which was… just two weeks ago.

Iruka kneels down before the man. He’s careful not to startle Kakashi: he knows many nin are anxious about being woken abruptly, he can’t imagine an ANBU would be any more understanding.

However, Kakashi doesn’t stir when Iruka smooths his hands over the man’s blue-clad biceps. He’s as limp as a ragdoll as Iruka manipulates him to sitting against the apartment front door. 

It’s… bizarre. 

A terrified part of him wonders if this is a jutsu of some kind, set up as a trap. Perhaps it’s is a messed-up sort-of clone of Kakashi, put here to kill him? Who the fuck would do that? Why?

Then he notices Kakashi is clutching something in his hand.

Iruka’s heart flips up his throat, lodges there, and chokes him.

His old omega collar, the one from last night – it’s clenched between Kakashi’s gloved fingers here in front of Iruka’s apartment. 

The man remains passed out; he’s sleeping so deeply that Iruka’s touch doesn’t disturb him. 

Iruka can feel the outline of his lungs, seizing, freezing, sticking in time. His entire skeleton seems electrified and singed at once, the bright white of his bone on display as lightning strikes him. 

In his pocket, the porcelain chip from Kakashi’s mask weighs him down, down past sanity, down into turmoil. He was going to carry it with him forever, never telling a soul about it.

But… just what was Kakashi doing with his collar? He’s holding onto it so publicly… and he’s sleeping here, curled up in front of Iruka’s door, like a poor street animal begging to be let in.

Iruka doesn’t think. He just acts. 

It seems so natural to bring Kakashi inside.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A daytime update for you!! Y'all are inspirational beauties. You deserve it.
> 
> Thank you so much for all your comments. I just cannot say how wonderful it is to hear from you.
> 
> ___

_The weight of his headband lifting away… something touching his cheek softly… ruffling his hair… he takes a deep breath, then another… relaxing more… and more… this… it’s… nice…_

His eyes snap open, then pain punches him in the gut, and he covers the Sharingan. Reflexively, Kakashi’s hand goes to the dōjutsu in his head: he presses down on Obito’s eyeball, working out tension around the bone of the eyesocket. All attention gravitates to the agony of the area, like the Sharingan is a massive black hole, swallowing everything nearby into its great dark depth. 

He should still be asleep... this sort of immense pain is from chakra exhaustion. It’s from pushing himself too hard, too far, too fast. Even if he hates hospitals, that’s what they’re for – recovery in a safe place – medic-nin to regularly check vitals – less possibility of an ambush.

Kakashi cradles his head in one hand, blindly using the other to locate his headband. If he puts it back over the Sharingan, it will be less difficult to keep it shut and fall back asleep, then he can rest and recover. Whatever medic-nin removed it must have thought him stronger than he actually is right now… While he usually keeps his half-masked face liberated from the headband during hospital visits, this time he feels like he’s gone twenty rounds of high-speed taijutsu with Maito Gai after returning home from a month-long ANBU mission abroad fighting other alphas.

His fingers caress something – but it’s not his headband.

He struggles to open his original eye.

It’s…

It’s an orange.

His eye widens in confusion. It’s not just one orange. It’s three. 

And there’s two glasses full of water next to the oranges.

And a cup of cold green tea.

_He is not in a hospital. He’s in -_

Kakashi slowly turns his head, reviewing the room. Shock can’t breach his numbed body, but it sparks fires in his brain, because he realizes just where he is… it’s Iruka’s apartment.

The man’s gone, long gone, that’s perfectly clear. But there’s a thousand signs that he was just here sometime in the last few hours. There’s Kakashi’s headband resting high up on the windowsill above the bed. His flak jacket is carefully folded on a nearby wood chair. Kakashi’s protective leg and ankle bandages rest on top of the jacket, along with his metal-paneled gloves and kunai pouch. His dark blue shinobi sandals are tucked neatly underneath the chair like civilian school-children’s shoes. 

He glances at the oranges with his one eye.

While he thoughtlessly puts his headband back over the Sharingan, his free hand goes for an orange and starts to peel it. Old habits rise to the surface, and he’s meticulous taking apart the fruit before he eats it piece by piece. It is sweet tart luscious love on his tongue. His body involuntarily shivers, delighted to have something to consume and digest after so much labor. 

He downs both glasses of water, and eats the other two oranges, and stares at the green tea.

He knows from the shadow clone’s memory that Iruka doesn’t brew tea for breakfast – the chūnin-sensei is rushing out the door before he goes to the Academy, barely able to cook food properly for himself, let alone spare the meditative time for a morning tea ritual.

So… Iruka made the tea specifically for him.

_For Kakashi._

His silver eyebrows rise contemplatively. It… would be rude not to drink the tea. So… he does.

He ignores the little pleased cat-smile that tries his lips. 

Reflecting on just what happened here, how he got here and so on, Kakashi eventually gathers all the evidence he knows and creates what he believes to be a rather persuasive argument. 

He (1) abandoned Iruka after the omega’s heat, (2) regretted that so much he nearly cried, (3) saw and apologized to the Hokage, who (Kakashi may have hallucinated this) approved of his relationship-thing with Iruka, but may have also accused Kakashi of being a village slut, (4) saw his ninken and his ANBU teammate, all nine supporting him in their own very demure ways, (5) admitted aloud that he perhaps might possibly actually want a mate in Iruka Umino, and (6) … 

And (6) … ?

Staring out Iruka’s bedroom window, Kakashi’s not sure of the last part – how he got here.

He had been heading home until he met with the others, his dogs and his ANBU partner. But something in their conversation, in their very short dialogue, turned him around…

And he went back to Iruka’s.

Did he go inside? He’s done so uninvited several times now, but this time feels different. The image of Iruka’s sorrowful stare when left alone in bed… It wrecks Kakashi even now. 

_Guilt._ This is guilt. First jealousy, now guilt. _This is bullshit, all these new feelings,_ he thinks to himself, filling with furiously clawing frustration. So, apparently guilt-stricken, he came back to Iruka’s – and then what? He remembers, very vaguely, like a genjutsu blurry and untrue, swaying in front of Iruka’s apartment, standing at the front door, and then sinking down to his knees, and then… and then he laid down, so tired, so sore, so fucking sad.

Just then, Kakashi notices the omega collar on the pillow beside him.

He’s thrilled his headband is in place, because he instinctively tries to open the Sharingan… He’s so very stupefied to see the thing he hates so viscerally placed near him as if on a pedestal. 

Touching it, though – Kakashi surprisingly feels less hatred than he would have expected.

It’s Iruka’s.

He cannot sense he’s in a hormonal omega’s apartment: he certainly can’t tell from any alpha instinct that this is Iruka Umino’s collar, who just hours ago went through and overcame heat.

But he knows this collar… He’s _bitten_ this collar – during his rut, in the closet, when he… when he and Iruka… when they…

Kakashi’s fondly studying the omega collar in his bare hands. The black leather is so dark and stark against his pale palms, his white skin always hidden under gloves. He doesn’t like this collar… truthfully he hates this collar and everything it represents, but it’s Iruka’s, and it holds within itself precious memories.

The realization hits him like explosive tag strapped to a kunai.

_I fucking stole this._

_**I pulled it out of my pocket and cuddled with it.** _

_** While sleeping on Iruka’s doorstep. ** _

He is so, so happy no one is around, because Kakashi Hatake burns bright red, utterly mortified.

Somehow –

He wills himself to live.

He does pass out, though. He only knows that because, two hours later, he wakes up again. The sun drifted onwards, oblivious to his suffering, and fluffy clouds have floated across Konoha. Avoiding the very real horror he has within himself, Kakashi tests his stability by standing, and then he wanders down the hallway into the kitchen, trying to see what Iruka has available. From the shadow clone’s memories – from stalking Iruka yesterday… was that really just yesterday? damn, that feels like ten years ago now – it’s quite clear that Iruka doesn’t have much food. 

In fact, there’s mostly rice and the odds and ends of various vegetables. But it’s enough: Kakashi starts cooking, compartmentalizing his humiliation and refocusing on making lunch.

He leans against the counter, picking up rice with chopsticks, chewing lunch, as he considers what Iruka might eat for his midday meal. The man has to eat something, right?

But Kakashi single-eyes the fridge, frowning behind his mask. Yeah. Yeah… based on the depressing bits and pieces of meals in the kitchen, Iruka might actually be starving all the time. 

So… he shrugs to himself and makes Iruka a bento lunch.

The aquamarine-colored bento container is cute – a present from a friend? Kakashi fills it up with white rice, leftover salmon, asparagus stalks, cherry tomatoes, and carrots. Yet dissatisfaction stops him from closing the bento box lid… the carrot slices look bland, like, miserably bland. They’re just thick orange circles on the side. The next decision comes easy: he pulls out a kitchen knife from a drawer and makes quick work of the carrots, transforming them into Konoha symbols. He chows down on the extra bits, which his stomach appreciates greatly.

Okay! Off to the Academy.

Fortunately, with food in his belly and sleep easing away pain, Kakashi doesn’t limp across Konoha like a wounded soldier come home from war. He’s got Iruka’s omega collar in his pocket, because… well, because what else would he do with it? He’s not going to leave it.

It seems a little late for lunch, but maybe he’ll get lucky.

And it looks like he is! Iruka is standing outside the Academy, his pre-genin gathered with each other. The children are a rowdy bunch, but they distract each other quite fine, so Kakashi will be able to –

He stops in the road, seeing the silver-haired sensei who he hates approach Iruka.

It doesn’t take a genius to recognize the way Iruka’s instantly on guard, his anger rising, his comments quick and cutting, but then again, the other chūnin-sensei is acting like an asshole, so it’s obviously not an unwarranted defense. For even the brief second that Kakashi watches their exchange, it’s evident that the other man, a beta, is trying to provoke Iruka and tear him down.

Yeah.

Yeah, fuck that.

Kakashi immediately Body Flickers in between them and faces Iruka, even as his chakra goes from ‘tiny bit recovered’ – to - ‘what the fuck, why did you do that - fuck you, Kakashi Hatake!’ 

He eye-smiles and lifts a hand to Iruka, ignoring the shocked crash and profanity behind him.

“Hello, Iruka-sensei,” he announces cheerily.

Iruka is crazy-person staring at him, like he’s witnessing the first Hokage rise from the grave only to visit him at school. However, he’s no longer looking at the shitty silver-haired sensei, which causes Kakashi to feel _very, very good inside._ Still eye-smiling, Kakashi raises the cloth-wrapped bento box with his other hand and declares, easy and overly pleasant, “I’ve brought you lunch.”

Iruka’s hackles drop; tension flees from him. He’s still looking mystified, but a flustered flush sweeps across his scarred cheeks, and Kakashi feels almost sick from being so self-satisfied. 

“Oh,” the delightful omega murmurs, reaching up to scratch at his facial scar. “Thank you, Kakashi-san.” His dark eyes flick up from the bento to Kakashi’s single grey eye… and there’s rarely been such profound pleasure coursing through Kakashi except from times during rut. He’s yet again happy to wear a mask, so the extent of his tremendous joy is only known to him.

In contrast, Iruka is openly looking at him like a smitten omega.

_Mmm, mm, sensei._

He walks up to the man and practically takes him by the arm, directing them to a bench.

It occurs to him several yards away that there was that irritating little shit of a beta – but, eh, fuck it, fuck him. Clearly Iruka’s not thinking about the other chūnin anymore: he’s holding Kakashi’s offered bento box in his hands like he’s found a holy treasure crafted by the gods. By the time they’re sitting on the bench, Iruka seems so overwhelmed that he can barely find his words. 

Kakashi thinks he has found his true calling: making lunches for Iruka Umino.

Sure, he knows a thousand jutsus, he’s only one of two surviving Sharingan-users in the world, and he might be one of the village’s best ANBU, but…

There’s something so fulfilling in seeing Iruka’s scarred face light up as he opens the bento box.

But the feeling is torn right out of his chest, leaving him hollow, when Iruka looks at Kakashi and asks him, incredulous, pained, bordering on breaking-into-tears, “What the hell are we doing?”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, y'all really make life wonderful. Thank you for your feedback. It's so easy and fun to write with your comments in mind. Please enjoy your daily update!
> 
> ____

After hearing him pleadingly ask “What the hell are we doing?” Kakashi looks at him as if Iruka’s just slit his ninken’s throat.

It’s over in a second, though – emotion entirely disappeared into the void. The jōnin goes from devastated to vacant in less than an instant: his appearance alters so completely it’s unbelievable. 

Regardless, Iruka wants to cry. He can’t help Kakashi – he doesn’t understand this anymore. Mizuki’s in his ear from only a minute ago: after having spotted a lustful bruise, the beta hissed he’s a mate replacement, he’ll be tossed aside by whatever alpha’s insane enough to use him. 

Sitting still beside him on the bench, Kakashi says quietly, “I thought you might be hungry,” like he doesn’t understand Iruka’s question, which he obviously absolutely does, he’s always a God damn genius, he’s just avoiding conflict, _the frustrating beautiful awful son of a bitch._

As Iruka turns to face him further, he watches Kakashi slip a hand into his pocket and fumble with something hidden away. The alpha can’t manage to answer, though, which drives Iruka utterly up the proverbial wall. Gripping the bento box in his lap, Iruka desperately searches Kakashi’s grey eye, unable to hold back the swirling mess inside him.

He feels fucking hot under his omega collar. He’s mad as hell. He really wants to cry – or kill Kakashi – or fuck him until the alpha _breaks._

Breaks in half.

_Breaks completely._

Iruka hears his voice shake as he repeats himself, knowing his eyes must be practically begging, “Kakashi, please - what are we doing? I don’t understand… Is this something you do with omegas?” 

The alpha jōnin’s grey eye opens incrementally in surprise; his hand clenches in his pocket out of sight. But Kakashi stays silent, staring blankly back at Iruka, who is fast becoming so furious that it feels like wretched blood-red blisters are rising all over his skin and up, down, and inside his throat. 

“If it is a habit of yours, going out and using omegas,” he grounds out, clutching the box so hard it creaks in his grip, “you need to tell me right now. I don’t sleep around. I’ve only had one other –”

Embarrassment murders the rest of sentence. Iruka cuts himself off sharply, turning fully red. He didn’t mean to say – he wasn’t supposed to say – Kakashi shouldn’t know his history -

But now Kakashi is _staring_ back at him with a new sentiment screaming across his mostly-covered expression. 

Oh. 

Oh, God.

Iruka wants to crawl into a hole and die. He’s dug the hole, it already exists, he just has to slink down into its cool crumbling depth and die. He’s stopped breathing in his infuriated panic, but shit, he feels… ugh, he’s hot, he’s dripping sweat, his omega collar is tight, it’s choking him to death.

Finally, Kakashi murmurs, low, uneasy, “Iruka, I –”

But he doesn’t get very far.

Neither of them do.

Because, at the exact same time, they both realize there’s someone standing in front of them.

Omega instincts shove right to the surface and take over entirely: Iruka recognizes it’s an alpha instantaneously. His throat goes dry, his eyes dilate, he fixates on the other man’s captivated expression directed at him. Much more rational, coherent thought supplies that he knows this person… this is a tokubetsu jōnin who Iruka has seen several times at the mission desk, a man a few years older than him, dark-featured and dark-skinned, very skilled in one particular area.

This alpha wields a samurai sword which he infuses with chakra. He’s wearing it now on his hip. His hand isn’t on it, though. No, his hand is extended outwards, towards…

Iruka finds himself considering the open hand being presented to him. His thoughts are maddening, hot, jumbled: he glances up at the tokubetsu jōnin and runs through a dozen different simulations of them together, unable to stop sweaty, stumbling, primeval instinct. 

The alpha is waiting for Iruka’s decision.

But –

But not everyone is.

Suddenly, Kakashi stands with unfair grace – and steps in front of Iruka. It’s obvious he’s an ANBU, his movements silent and efficient; he keeps his hands in his pockets, feigning calm. 

Now only able to see Kakashi’s back, green flak jacket, and shinobi blues, Iruka becomes deeply disoriented. His brain goes from alpha-obsessed to _alpha-what-alpha?_ in a split second. The whole world spins and spins and spins, and he puts the bento box aside to grip the bench, desperately needing stability now more than ever. He’s distracted, too distracted, so distracted, that he doesn’t see –

Ah, fuck.

Kakashi and the other alpha are actually brawling now.

As in, hand-to-hand combat.

On the Academy playground.

_Fucking hell._

Worse, he’s having trouble following the fight - the two jōnins are moving at such aggressive speeds! Every once and a while, there’s a brief slow-down when one of the pair lands a hard blow. But they’re back at it almost immediately. Fortunately, from what Iruka can track, no one seems to have pulled kunai or sword – it’s taijutsu only - kicks and punches at enhanced level.

… Oh, but Iruka can tell something’s wrong.

Well, the fight’s all wrong, unbelievable and crazy, but that’s not it, that’s not it at all.

Kakashi is tired. 

Really, really tired.

He’s obviously chakra-exhausted - it’s irresponsible for him to be even trying to stand this long. Plus, he was ridiculously abused during Iruka’s heat. Then, on top of EVERYTHING, his two-week-long ANBU mission ended literally yesterday, whatever it was, wherever it was!

_Oh my God. I hope he ate the oranges._

Much more horribly, no such burdens weigh down the tokubetsu jōnin. The man is older than Kakashi, too, but not nearly as multi-talented. However, he clearly makes up for it in his intensity, which truly is something to behold… he must find Iruka greatly appealing on a hormonally instinctive level, because he really is giving it his all in his competitive mating display, in his fight with another alpha, in his attempt to win over Iruka’s omega affections.

He smashes Kakashi in his blindspot over the shielded Sharingan. 

The metal headband actually indents.

Kakashi collapses on the ground. 

The other alpha abruptly unsheathes his sword and puts it to Kakashi’s cloth-masked throat. His intentions need no verbalization, neither his hopeful display to Iruka, nor his _surrender-now-or-die_ to Kakashi. For all his speed and finesse, the tokubetsu jōnin is breathing heavily, his black eyes big and wild and manic. His grip on his prized sword is shaky, the blade is trembling. 

Well below him, the pale skin around Kakashi’s grey eye is purpling black, and there’s bright red blood splatter across his green jacket. Propped up on his elbows, he’s glaring up at the other alpha with dazed but dangerous fury. Undoubtedly, Kakashi is still assessing his options, and Iruka absolutely does not count him out, even if for this very second he’s down in the dirt.

Iruka keeps his focus on Kakashi, using their hormonal deadness to trick his omega instincts.

He is mercilessly resolved as he grabs the tokubetsu jōnin’s shoulder.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can just tell the alpha’s position, his location.

It’s enough.

Because Iruka clenches his other hand into a fist and punches the man right in the nose.

Now there’s two alphas in the dirt, and they’re _both_ staring up at him in shock.

All the power and self-control that he’s supposed to have as an omega – he yanks it all together like he’s dragging dense metal chains across the training grounds – he moves in front of Kakashi, stands tall, holds his shoulders high, and proclaims, his voice stormy and thunderous:

_**“This man is my alpha. You will leave us alone.”** _

The tokubetsu jōnin stares at Iruka… and then swallows in submission. He lowers his gaze, abashed, embarrassed. Without glancing back at them, the alpha gathers his sword and hastily Body Flickers away, leaving Iruka and Kakashi alone in an otherwise abandoned playground.

Ah… apparently, all the pre-genin were ushered inside sometime during the fight.

As he kneels down, Iruka reaches for Kakashi’s face, profound worry boiling up inside him. Distantly, he understands that excess stress from their argument had riled up his dying heat, that he’s irregular in the first place because he doesn’t have a mate, but he’s not concerned about that, he’s worried about – about –

Kakashi’s grey eye is gleaming again.

He’s loose in Iruka’s hands, like he can’t totally hold himself up, both chakra exhaustion and bone-weariness having finally caught up to him once more. The bad bruise around his eye is probably matched by many more under his blue mask. It seems very possible the alpha could choke on blood – he certainly smells keen and coppery, like the aftermath of a battlefield.

Iruka’s so frazzled, he forgets himself. He pulls down Kakashi’s mask, checking for more injuries.

Instantly, he spots Kakashi’s busted bottom lip, ruby-red blood welling up on the wound. Several more bruises – some gold-brown, some already black – decorate his pale face. There’s even one under the closed Sharingan, above Kakashi’s lovely lonely little black beauty mark.

Feeling his heart just break, Iruka caresses Kakashi’s bruise, unable to suppress a frown.

That’s when he finally notices.

Grey eye bright with delight, Kakashi is looking up at him with a wibbly-wobbly smile.

Horror rushes through him as Iruka thinks, _He has a concussion!_

But that is not at all what Kakashi cares about, because the man instead stares loopily into Iruka’s surprised eyes and tipsily sing-songs, a bit of blood trailing from his cut bottom lip…

_“I’m your alpha ~ ”_


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Know I love you. I promise things will turn out beautifully with our pair.
> 
> Thank you so much for your feedback. I just am so overwhelmed by y'all.
> 
> ___

Pain seems rather insignificant now that he is Iruka’s.

He’s happy. Not in control, but whatever. He’s happy. He still controls a few things; he doesn’t let Iruka bring them back to the chūnin’s apartment. Even while fuzzy-headed and leaning brokenly on the other man, Kakashi navigates them through Konoha’s streets with relative ease. He’d never intended to fight Raidō Namiashi, the Hokage’s bodyguard, but, admittedly, he’s been thinking very little ever since his mission with Iruka, since he heard the omega _whimper_ and _gasp_ off by himself in the woods, so far away, yet so damn close.

He pauses at his front door… he so rarely enters his bachelor jōnin apartment this way. After glancing thoughtfully at the window, Kakashi feels Iruka tug hard on his elbow, and he looks at the omega, raising his silver brows in silent question. He is rather surprised to see Iruka staring at him with that _what-the-fuck-are-you-doing_ expression that sometimes crosses his painfully attractive scarred face. After giving a dual-shouldered shrug, Kakashi steps down from the balcony railing, jumping away from his window, and messes with the door, finally deciding to just break it open with a forceful shove. He hears Iruka curse behind him, so he turns around and smiles, trying to be reassuring, but, oh, he’s still wearing his mask, he should pull it down.

Iruka should see him!

Iruka’s not happy, though, which is crushing. Trying to appease him, Kakashi tolerates being manhandled through his small, spartan apartment into the bathroom, careful not to upset the man any further. He is delightfully distracted by the love bruise he sees on Iruka’s wrist. He doesn’t remember doing that, not clearly, anyway, but, mmm, Iruka does have such pretty hands. He does such wonderful impertinent work with Kakashi’s hard cock. It’s understandable that Kakashi should lick his fingers, one by one, the long scarred things against his tongue, deep in his mouth, pressing on the back of his throat, while he grips Iruka’s other wrist so tight it bruises, lovingly restraining the omega. He should do that again. Soon. Now?

When Iruka suddenly pulls off his headband, Kakashi flutters open the Sharingan.

He starts to black out, so he closes the Sharingan quickly.

Everything hurts, but…

_This man is my alpha._

Kakashi straightens, lifting his back off from against the sink, allowing Iruka to pull off his jacket and shirt. Now halfway-bare to the other man, he wonders when he’ll get to see the omega unclothed again, maybe now, maybe he should try to take off Iruka’s – okay, Iruka does not like that, he smacks Kakashi’s hand really fast and hard, _that smarts._ Wincing a tiny bit at the rejection, Kakashi watches Iruka consider his exposed chest; the chūnin touches all the spots where the rival alpha crushed fist and foot into Kakashi’s torso. He’s wearing a sweetly worried expression, and Kakashi preens, feels infinitely victorious at being fussed over so much. 

A moment later, Iruka does something even more magnificent.

The omega carefully does the hand formations for a healing jutsu, then he brushes his green-chakra-filled hands over Kakashi’s bare chest with its black, purple, brown, and gold bruises.

The sweeping sensation sends shivers over Kakashi’s skin, and he sighs, closing his eye, too.

Then Iruka’s fingers caress Kakashi’s face, both sides, the scarred and unscarred. The man’s chakra sinks into Kakashi like milk chocolate melting, just as warm and saccharine. His bruises – the myriad of broken blood vessels throughout his body – repair compliantly in response. 

Kakashi opens his grey eye and searches Iruka’s soul.

Worry no longer dominates the man’s stance… now exhaustion wears him down as adrenaline finally fades away. His dark eyes are cautiously inspecting his chakra’s work, examining every visible inch of skin. Yet his hands continue to rest on Kakashi’s cheekbones, his thumb forming a bridge over the knife-scar, like he’s the only thing holding Kakashi together. 

Maybe he is.

It seems so easy to kiss him.

Oh, that gasp… it might just get Kakashi killed one day. 

But he’ll likely love dying if it’s for Iruka.

Kissing while they’re both sober – oh, man, it’s good, it’s really good. His bare chest feels glorious against Iruka’s flak jacket, his skin’s sensitive, the fabric coarse and cruel. His hands fit perfectly on Iruka’s ass, grinding them together. His mouth was made for Iruka’s, their tongues destined. 

Even though he loves the man’s reckless whimpering as they kiss, he wants to ignore Iruka’s protest, half-moaned against his parted lips. “Kakashi, we can’t – you’re not in your right mind.”

“Mm.”

Rather than responding any further, Kakashi flicks out his tongue and licks a nice long hot line along Iruka’s jaw, ending at his earlobe, which he sucks into his mouth and bites just once.

In his arms, Iruka startles, taking in a shaky breath.

Could it remind the omega of something else? 

That Kakashi could –

That Kakashi could bite him.

Bond them.

He looks at the man, holding him close, curious to see that scarred expression once more.

Iruka’s blush could win wars. It certainly inspires Kakashi, who kisses him with enough force that Kakashi himself starts to feel faint, seeing stars in his vision all white and bright and shiny.

So many stars.

Or is that the feeling in his chest?

Not like a Chidori’s shoved through it… 

More like his dark insides were replaced with all the sky’s brilliant twinkling constellations.

Oh...

_Iruka._

They are very much _not_ in the bathroom when Kakashi rediscovers consciousness. Instead, they seem to have relocated to Kakashi's bed, which is not exactly designed for two people, but Iruka Umino does not seem to mind whatsoever. Moreover, the omega has decided to cradle Kakashi to his chest, and he’s caressing Kakashi’s hair as if he’s petting a beloved cat.

Kakashi feels like a beloved cat. 

It’s a good creature to be – Iruka’s cat. 

He nuzzles into Iruka’s hand the next time it comes close.

“Oh,” he can just hear Iruka murmur, soft, sleepy, so sorely sweet. “You’re awake.” The man pauses, presses down on Kakashi’s still-slightly-pained cheek, testing out the injury, finds it fine. “How do you feel? You passed out while we were kissing.” He sounds a little embarrassed, and Kakashi glances up with one eye at him, drinking in the sight of the omega yet again blushing. 

He sort-of realizes he’s smiling a bit lopsidedly as he replies casually, “I’m fine. How are you?”

Iruka’s brown eyebrows go high; he clearly tries to repress an amused smile. It seems like it’s at Kakashi’s expense, so Kakashi tries to look serious, straightening out his unmasked expression. 

However, that doesn’t work, not at all, and Iruka apparently can’t handle it, and he bursts into laughter, his muscular torso tightening under Kakashi’s embrace, but Iruka’s quick to apologize, even if it’s in between entertained huffs, “I’m sorry, but you – oh, you look so drunk, Kakashi.”

Suddenly, Iruka’s fingers are on the corners of Kakashi’s mouth, pulling on his lips, tracing them. The omega’s smiling this soft fond smile at him, one that Kakashi has never, ever seen in his life.

“You have such a silly smile right now,” Iruka explains, his tone tender, his eyes warm.

_Oh…_

He’s captured by how the omega’s looking at him.

How… could they not respond hormonally to each other?

How could that be… when Kakashi is only this weak with one person. 

With… Iruka Umino.

Silence overtakes him. So does solemnity. He’s dazed, just laying there. A hundred battles over two dozen years, and he’s never felt this thrown. If they had instincts towards each other… it would have made sense, propose to Iruka, making a mating display, like the enemy alpha in the road, like the Konoha alphas who court Iruka inside the village… but… Kakashi’s never done that.

With anyone.

But then again, he’s never fought for an omega, either, and he definitely just did so.

Is that the first time for Iruka, too?

Have other alphas fought for Iruka before? He made that quip, that earlier mistake, back on the bench, about Kakashi only being his second partner. Or was it… Kakashi is only Iruka’s second _alpha?_ has Iruka been with betas - like that monstrous little annoying sensei? is that why the other man’s so obsessed with Iruka? they slept together and now he feels like he’s losing Iruka to an alpha? could that be true? could it?

“Don’t squint like that, you’ll get wrinkles,” Iruka chides, drowsy, amused. His fingers drift up and stroke to Kakashi’s temples starting from the corner of his grey eye and the Sharingan. 

A weird sense of panic climbs up Kakashi’s stomach and starts to suffocate him. He’s never really thought about competition actively intervening on what they have, whatever they’re doing, but – but that’s what just happened, didn’t it, just a few hours ago, and even though he tried his best, he failed, and it was Iruka who had to step in, and even though Iruka chose him in that moment, maybe that was only to get the other alpha away, they’ve only been together for two heats and his last rut, barely a month, that’s no time at all, Iruka’s probably thinking about other partners, of course he is, look at him, look at that fucking beautiful scar and those eyes and this gorgeous body – he probably smells fucking divine, not that Kakashi can tell, but other alphas can sense him and he responds to them so swiftly, so fully, so faithfully, unlike - unlike –

_Oh, **fuck.**_

Surprise physically jolts through Iruka. He grabs onto Kakashi’s shoulders and hauls him upward until they’re both sitting beside each other on the bed. 

“Kakashi?” he asks, fear bright in his voice. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the little delay! Work got in the way. I hope you are doing well, and that you enjoy our pair's progress. <3 As always, your feedback inspires and motivates me to write. Much love to you.
> 
> ___

Kakashi’s expression burned with hot want, his single-eyed gaze scorching the world black. His pink tongue rolled over his split bottom lip, not tasting blood anymore, but tasting _Iruka_. Blood boiled away into nothing in Iruka’s veins as he returned the look in utter disbelief. They were intertwined in the jōnin’s apartment bathroom; Kakashi had him in a tight taijutsu hold done so thoughtlessly it was just sick, the high skill of the elite shinobi. His teeth were still visible – white, sharp, ready – they had just been teasing Iruka’s earlobe, treating it like his omega nape.

Oh… that searing gaze.

_I’m going to melt under such heat._

With refined ANBU-marked arms keeping Iruka trapped close, Kakashi, concussed, chakra-exhausted, bodily injured, no longer had the sense to restrain his expressions. His desire to mark Iruka – bite Iruka – bond them – gloried darkly in his scarred, bruised facial features. His half-lidden grey eye captivated – no, captured, tied up, tortured – Iruka, sending blood rushing to his cheeks and his groin, leaving him a blushing, flustered, starstruck total fucking idiot.

And then Kakashi kissed him without any inhibition. 

Abruptly, the alpha’s tongue was deep in Iruka’s mouth, his hands going in two directions grabbing Iruka’s ass through his pants and feverishly clutching his flak jacket with the other, and his hard cock grinding into Iruka’s like some sort of deadly hot promise. 

All thoughts fled from his mind, scattering to the far corners of the planet.

He kissed the jōnin back, so very aware how hormone-sober they both were, even if –

Even if Kakashi was definitely _not_ in his right mind… 

Still…

The alpha’s tongue retreated, licked wearily the corner of Iruka’s lips. His hands loosened their manic, sex-panicked grip. His shoulders slowly sagged. His breathing started to pale and escape.

Then…

Kakashi collapsed.

Onto Iruka.

Sending them both half-crashing to the ground.

Only shinobi training saved them – Iruka built up his body just for occasions like this, although if he could have conjured a situation like this in his head before, he would have been a prophet. Fortunately, though, he rescued Kakashi from smashing his already battered face into the tile. Ignoring how his continuous arousal seemed oblivious to the end of kissing, Iruka checked on the other nin, making sure he hadn’t done anything worse than passing out… And, indeed, that was what had just happened to Kakashi Hatake of the Sharingan. He’d passed out while kissing.

The jōnin’s apartment was functional and small in size: it had only a short entrance way leading into a combined living room and kitchen, then the bathroom, then the bedroom. Dragging Kakashi the few feet between the bathroom and the bed was not incredibly difficult, although it was immensely uncomfortable, as the alpha acted like a drunk who’d blacked out at the bar. It was even weirder to dress him in a new shinobi shirt, but Iruka managed that, too. 

After retracing his steps to the front door, Iruka picked up his bento box, his weird little happy smile returning. Kakashi had showed up so triumphantly to the Academy holding the blue-and-white checkered cloth that it caused Iruka to forget everything Mizuki was snarling at him. The jōnin had looked positively pleased with himself, and Iruka was swept away, flustered and shocked at the man’s arrival at work. The sight of the bento - _the carrots are tiny adorable Konoha swirls!_ \- stirred Iruka straight into crazy, and he’d finally pushed them into the conversation that – well, shit, they’d both been avoiding. Clearly, each of them had preferred to relish this thing between them without dealing with the reality or consequences.

That other alpha – he wasn’t nearly as surprising as Kakashi deciding to fight.

Fight for Iruka.

The smile rose unruly on Iruka’s lips. He returned to the alpha in bed, considering him wistfully. Kakashi’s soft silver hair and peaceful expression, his long lovely legs and his beautiful arms with that stunning red ANBU tattoo. The healing jutsu continued to do its work, clearing the bruises from the man’s nearly pure-white skin. Of course, over a hundred scars stayed behind, but Iruka knew those now and felt trembly fondness for each and every one of them.

He slid into bed, adjusting Kakashi so the man’s head rested on his lap. As he watched the poor overworked alpha sleep and dream, Iruka took his good sweet time eating the gifted bento.

Two hours later, Kakashi wakes up – and smiles at him in such a silly way that just cannot be real.

But, wow, seeing Kakashi try to “correct” his expression – oh, oh, God, it's hilarious.

He only ends up looking more absurd: scrunching his face together into a faux grumpy face, all while his smile keeps fighting to the surface with all kinds of stupid strength.

Their banter is nice and effortless once again, just like in the closet, and Iruka feels warm, fuzzy, and wonderful. It is absolutely marvelous touching Kakashi’s face, drawing over the alpha’s smile, and, God… the man is so handsome, and so strong, and so protective, and, oh...

_Kakashi._

Just as the name sings in his heart, Iruka notices…

He jostles Kakashi until the alpha’s sitting up in bed, but he doesn’t let him go. Horrified by the wet shine in Kakashi’s grey eye, Iruka clutches the man’s arms, desperately searching his weak expression for answers. Underneath layers of fear and worry, he can feel nausea riling up his stomach, eating away his intestinal lining, bubbling up his esophagus. He _hates_ the anguish on Kakashi’s face: he wants to take it away however he can, _this very instant._

“Kakashi? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” he asks rapidly, not stopping to breathe.

He can literally see Kakashi thinking.

It’s incredible.

It’s also fucking terrifying, because right now Kakashi’s not impulsive, he’s mostly recovered, he’s definitely not in rut. No, he’s rational. His voice is clear, sharp, pained as he asks, staring only at Iruka:

“What did you mean by that?”

At first, Iruka imagines that the jōnin means the recent comments about his silly smile, but… there’s such heavy weight and struggle in Kakashi’s question… it’s not that. As they gaze restlessly at each other in bed, he wonders if the man is referencing the _“What the hell are we doing?”_ from hours and hours ago on the Academy bench when he opened the bento. 

But… no.

It’s not that, either.

When Iruka finally realizes it, he understands completely.

Of course.

Kakashi is asking about…

_**This man is my alpha. You will leave us alone.** _

Oh… but when Iruka said that, he’d hoped never to address it. Yet distress disturbs Kakashi’s expression, his silver eyebrow crinkled, his grey eye glossy. He hasn’t blinked, he hasn’t looked away. Instead of feeling a rosy blush creep up his neck, Iruka finds himself pale and stricken. 

He doesn’t know how to say all the things in his head, in his soul, in his loins… Hell, half of them are dreamy foolish things, like “maybe we could marry under cherry blossom trees” and “God, you’re so pretty that sometimes when we fuck, I feel ugly.” He feels crushed under the terror of being left behind, which literally just happened to him less than twenty-four hours ago, by this very man. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he’s abandoned… certainly not suicide or self-harm, but… what would happen to his heart? his spirit? his shinobi way? He’s been an adult for years now, since he became chūnin, since he presented as an omega… but… fuck, he feels like a useless kid staring at Kakashi, who is undeniably in his prime, perfectly formed as both shinobi and alpha. 

Still… he did shout down an alpha today. 

A tokubetsu jōnin, no less. 

Very vaguely, Iruka feels like he’s seen that same alpha accompanying the Hokage.

So, he punched an elite in the face and turned him down verbally, too. The alpha instantly submitted to his omega-hormonal rejection. He left them alone, just like Iruka wanted. 

And Iruka did that all… for… Kakashi. 

_**This man is my alpha.** _

“I think of you like that,” he says, hearing how emotion chokes him. Although he wants to keep eye contact, he can’t maintain the intensity that Kakashi exudes, and so he glances down, pulling away his hands from the alpha’s biceps. He feels sick: he might throw up everything at once as anxiety viscerally twirls through his body. This is stupid, he shouldn’t confess something so soft and vulnerable and ridiculous. They’re hormonally dead to each other… this is the equivalent of admitting love-lust-obsession with a beta… except the beta would have to be a village legend and one of the most startling, frustrating, amazing people in all of existence. 

There is no such beta.

There’s only… Kakashi Hatake.

Still - fuck.

Iruka tries to fix his confession, adding in a firmer tone, still not looking at Kakashi, “I know you feel protective over me. I get it – I’m an omega. I’m not even a great one.” He swallows bitterly, clenching his hand in the bedsheets. Tension radiates from him, he can’t control it, but he forces out and concludes with: “I’m sure Konoha appreciates you caring for stray omegas.”

He can _see_ Kakashi rescuing him during his first heat… saving him on the road on their botched mission… putting up wards over his apartment, over and over again… helping him in the horrid heat in the hallway with such aloof, superior precision… yielding to his violent demand made through the shadow clone… 

Ah, shit, the man’s always been protecting him… this poor pitiful omega desperate for his help.

Kakashi cuts clean through his thoughts.

“I don’t care about omegas,” the alpha says in a voice so level that it could flatten mountains.

Surprise flies through him: Iruka lifts his face at the unexpected response. He blinks as he identifies the deep displeasure in Kakashi’s entirely exposed expression. Admittedly, they haven’t had too many interactions, but the jōnin has _never_ appeared like this in front of Iruka. He seems pissed, frustration pushing him to the edge of decency and good etiquette. 

Unable to wrangle patience into reality, Iruka replies immediately, confusion steering his retort, “But you’ve taken care of me a lot this past year.”

For a long, long while, it looks like Kakashi may not respond to him. The alpha is studying him; his eyebrows are lowered, and his half-lidden eye is even more narrowed than usual. Something tells Iruka to stay quiet, just to wait, and he finally manages to pull patience out of nowhere, forcefully keeping immobile as emotional nausea runs ruinously through him.

Even though it’s been about a thousand years, possibly longer, Kakashi finally says something.

“You.” 

There’s a moment, a pause, a single resting beat.

Iruka feels faint, the room’s tilting, he can’t breathe, he – 

Staying still, his grey eye serious, Kakashi emphasizes: “Only you.”

Oh. Oh God. He _is_ faint. His shoulders are rising and falling, his chest feels like he’s barely survived a crushing earth jutsu, his throat seems as dry as it gets during a sudden mating display. 

His hand seeks Kakashi’s – he can’t control it or himself.

Leaning toward the other man, Iruka’s whispering, the words hurting him because they’re just so very true, “I like you, I really like you,” and Kakashi’s grey eye does its familiar fine show of delight, and then – 

Oh, they’ve never kissed when they’re both hormone-sober and able-minded.

_It’s so fucking awkward._

But damn, it’s so good, too. They bump noses, Iruka laughs a little hysterically, Kakashi smiles an absolutely lethal smile, they both tilt their scarred faces, and the resulting kiss is a stumbling over-enthused mess of kiss, as if they’re teenagers sneaking out in the middle of the night, meeting giddy and eager at the training arena under the full moon, fumbling with jackets and belts and hairties all while soaring high on illicit excitement.

Kakashi moves slightly. 

His cut lip caresses Iruka’s cheek below the scar. 

Then he drops his head to Iruka’s shoulder and rubs his forehead there back and forth.

As Iruka wonders what’s gone wrong, Kakashi sighs out an explanation. “I have to rest.”

Flustered embarrassment overtakes him. Of course Kakashi has to recover, he’s not entirely healed yet. Automatically, Iruka brings up his hands and worriedly pets the jōnin’s arms, remarking, “That’s fine, I can leave, you should –”

Shit, Kakashi did _not_ like that. The man very much shows alpha severity as he shifts up only to glare at Iruka, his gaze stating obviously that he does not want to be left alone.

“… or I can stay,” Iruka offers, feeling a little dizzy-thrilled at the idea.

Now that _is_ what Kakashi wants, even if he’s not saying as much aloud. Iruka knows that quite clearly because the jōnin reaches over him, wrests something from under the bed, and then silently provides a ration bar to Iruka… and two for him. They eat in silence, Iruka filling with unimaginable surprise as the realization begins to hit him about just what the fuck they’re doing.

Soon Kakashi stretches out his arms over his head and then curls under the bed covers, which he keeps lifted up, indicating with complete calm that Iruka should join him under the sheets.

There is no way to deny the man.

It seems impossible. It _is_ impossible. 

He’s known that for a long time now… about Kakashi, that he can’t refuse the man.

Not hormonally, no, they both know that. But it’s much more than that. Hell, he can’t say no, not in any way, not in any setting, not to Kakashi.

And… why would Iruka want to do that, anyway?

He can only partially hide a small smile as Kakashi drops the bed covers over them both. Employing excellent skill, the alpha finds his hand under the sheets, and it’s not clear who starts it, but soon their fingers interlace in the darkness, softly and out of sight.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience. I hope you enjoy this very sex-filled chapter and further progression with our pair! As always, your words make life better and it so much easier to write the next update. ♡
> 
> ___

Kakashi wakes up like Gai has just punched him.

One second, asleep. The next, wide fucking awake. He threat-assesses in an instant: his apartment, an hour after sunrise, someone in his arms, strange wards over his bedroom. The Sharingan screams to leave it shut, so he does, but his own eye – he uses it immediately to see Iruka Umino kept tight in his embrace. The omega continues to be in-and-out of sleep, restless, shifting often and slightly. His breaths are little, low, light. Although his back is curved into Kakashi’s chest, his face is tilted up, his dark brown hair loose, his scar on display. The result is really, truly tempting.

Instead of letting logic distract him, Kakashi allows his hands to roam freely. 

The subsequent sight of a thoughtless blush hitting the chūnin-sensei’s scarred cheeks…

Mmm. 

Admittedly, it feels uncomfortable to caress someone while they’re both sober. He watches uneasiness drift through him, but he lets it go with the same languid outlook. There is no need to panic with an omega this close: Iruka won’t make him lose lucidity. Out of all the omegas in the world, Kakashi can do what he wanted most with Iruka … he can stay in control.

Much to his amusement, though – 

With Iruka, Kakashi enjoys letting a little loose. 

With his hands under the omega’s shirt, he strokes the defined muscles of Iruka’s abdomen. While unable to see them properly, he can still perfectly memorize them, even without the Sharingan. During their various times together, he’d noticed that Iruka only had a few serious scars, ones that suggested shoulder brushes with death. However, the omega is certainly a chūnin: he wears signs of battle and training like any good shinobi of the village. He is young and fit - Kakashi has not stopped to calculate his age beyond the basic knowledge that the man is a few years younger than him. 

Iruka could train to be jōnin, but… being a sensei suits him.

He looked so cute at the Academy.

Kakashi’s fingers slips under the elastic band of the omega’s pants, reaching for just what he wants this morning. He only then notices he doesn’t have his mask drawn up, as he feels the smirk on lips, no cloth constraint in the way. It seems quite easy to lean forward and nuzzle the side of Iruka’s neck as he starts to stroke the man’s cock, slow and appreciative. 

Ah, no collar today.

Thank God.

He can hear Iruka’s breathing hastening, can feel Iruka’s heart pounding, can see Iruka’s cheeks reddening. Thus, it is absolutely the Perfect Time to whisper against the omega’s sweet skin…

“Good morning, Iruka-sensei.”

Mmm, Iruka’s answering shivers send goosebumps all over Kakashi’s flesh. He pulls up Iruka’s shirt, bringing it to the man’s mouth, and follows his greeting with a low-spoken command: “Bite it.”

And, oh, the rebellious omega obeys him rightaway, which does downright nasty things to Kakashi. He’s more aggressive than he means to be as he finds one of Iruka’s nipples, flicks it, then twists it hard as he continues to jerk the man off. In response to the jolt of pain-pleasure, Iruka’s cock twitches in Kakashi’s hand. The omega gives a muffled groan even as he keeps his teeth sunk into his shirt, sending a bolt of lightning through Kakashi straight to his own cock.

He’s aware he’s been grinding into Iruka’s ass this whole time, but now…

Something about what they’re doing now makes him feel a little drunk.

Hormone drunk, alcohol drunk, pain drunk.

He can’t tell what it is, but –

Suddenly, Kakashi confesses into Iruka’s neck, unsubtle, careless:

“I love the sounds you make. I stay quiet so I can hear them.” 

All at once, Iruka stills as if he’s heard an enemy sneaking in the shadows. The realization crashes into Kakashi that he’s just said something he wasn’t intending on sharing, and that he’s not really sure why he even said it aloud in the first place, and, oh, shit, what are they doing? here? now?

Well –

Iruka provides answers.

Abruptly, the omega is not stuck in Kakashi’s hold; he’s on top of Kakashi, pulling his face upwards, bringing them together. All of a sudden, they’re kissing again. It’s just as bizarre as last night, awkward, way too messy. Pain confetti-explodes the few times when they’re too rough with each other, but pleasure’s the overriding sensation, building warmth throughout his body. Somewhere smart, in the far back of his brain, he’s tickled at the comparison: this feels like the description of omega’s heat, where desperation and demand burns the bones and makes crazy ideas seem sane. They’re not discussing what they’re doing, what they’re doing together, now, later, but Iruka's words echo in his head. 

_I like you, I really like you._

Hotly overwhelmed, Kakashi’s hands move to Iruka’s hips, his waist, and he’s rocking upwards into the omega, his clothed cock eager for much more. Soon they’re kissing less, then not at all. He’s staring up at Iruka in reverential silence, the man moving atop him like a divine entity, his body seeming almost fluid as he rides Kakashi, hidden muscles flexing, dark eyes scorching him through. 

He can’t find the words for what he wants.

His hands can’t get enough of Iruka - can’t grab enough - can’t grip him hard enough. 

He wants to _fuck_ the omega.

Confusion tears through him like a tornado, ripping apart all that he knew. The scaffolding of his life – as a nin, alpha, man – is all constructed on distance from intimacy, from vulnerability. He can’t avoid falling to cruel jutsu, or chakra exhaustion, or hormonal fuckery with his rut, but he’s done his damn best, and it’s gotten him through twenty plus years of life, which doesn’t happen for everyone. 

It didn’t happen for Obito.

Nor Rin.

Barely happened for his father. 

For Maito Dai.

For Kushina.

For Minato-sensei.

And… and now…

It’s all coming apart, everything he understood. It’s happening once again. The world he’s created for himself – it’s just falling apart at the seams, unraveling cloth into a thousand individual threads.

He was going to avoid omegas until he died in service to Konoha.

He _was_ avoiding omegas.

And… and now…

He wants Iruka Umino. He’s not in rut, the omega’s not in heat, but…

_But he’s never wanted anyone this badly in his entire life._

Seemingly out of nowhere, out of the unknown, Iruka rolls his hips, arches backward, and proposes in a tone so husky and aroused that Kakashi feels his body coil tight and draw up for combat, he’s so murderously disordered by the sweltering intensity of the other shinobi’s sudden demand:

“We should fuck.”

He uses the energy to lift Iruka off the bed and then slam him back down on the mattress. The omega’s looking up at him, flushed through his scar; his eyes are searching Kakashi’s bare expression. Restraint seems ridiculous, he doesn’t use it at all, in part because he doesn’t need to do so, this is a shinobi, but he likes how Iruka feels in his forceful grip, Iruka’s muscles are strong, his bones won’t break, and his eyes burn through Kakashi, awakening something deep inside him.

Neither of them is incredibly skillful as they rummage through their clothes, ridding them as fast as they can. There’s moments where either one elbows the other, or knees him, or knock into him. Such discomfort normally would pain Kakashi, make him wince internally and want to get the fuck away from this irrational mess. But now… he ignores when Iruka’s hair gets in his own face, and the omega swats it away, looking comically displeased, like he’s witnessed the worst attempt at a jutsu. 

Instead of thinking _just who the hell is this guy?_ , his mind seems to fill with summer beer, refreshing his life, brightening his mood, making him happy and drunk. He’s so inebriated with fondness for the other man that he doesn’t stop himself from smiling wide, nor tucking Iruka’s hair behind his ears, nor pushing the omega back down on the bed and spreading open his legs to lick, lick, lick.

Kakashi’s stupid delighted when Iruka shoves his head down more, further, making Kakashi lick deeper inside him. He’s relieved he still loves the taste of Iruka when neither of them is hormonally-enraged, but that thought’s gone within seconds, because he’s swiftly just thinking…

Fuck.

Fuck Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

He’s a panting, sloppy mess when Iruka grabs a fistful of his silver hair and yanks up, pulling him away from paradise. He almost finds himself sulking, both inside and outside, but then Iruka’s kissing him like Kakashi’s mouth is new land to explore and he’s a brutal conqueror seeking glory.

They’re back to stumbling awkward with each other, hands everywhere and anywhere, long muscular limbs in the way, sweat and slick and saliva causing things to be unexpectedly wet. Iruka’s hair is in his eyes again, and he’s pissed about it, but Kakashi runs his hands through it, and Iruka looks the way Kakashi felt when he first wrestled the Chidori into existence… shocked, incredulous, thrilled.

The position isn’t new – this is where they ended last time – slow tender sex in the darkness.

He thrusts in. Iruka throws his head back, his hand going to his mouth, biting down, stifling sound. Without thinking, Kakashi draws it away like an enemy blade at his throat in battle. He can barely follow his own words as he says, insistent and nearly pleading, “Don’t do that.”

Iruka’s eyes are black pools in the Forest of Death – mysterious, wondrous, infinite – and Kakashi feels like swimming in them – he feels like _drowning_ in them – and he hears himself asking Iruka while he fucks the omega, slow, sincere, splitting him open inch by inch, second by second, “Do you know how good you look?” But before the man can answer, Kakashi pulls out – then thrusts back in, hard, deep, and the omega whimpers a memory-erasing whimper – and he’s continuing, unable to keep his words to himself, his thoughts formerly bound up in bundles by his heart.

“You can’t know how good you look, you’re the reason nin burn villages, why men leave their wives,” he rambles on, holding onto Iruka, leaning down towards him. The omega’s stunned, but he’s whimpering at the strongest thrusts, those are the ones that Kakashi wants to keep doing, just so he can hear that sound again, made just for him, made because of him, and he tries, oh he tries. 

He’s forcing Iruka into an adjusted position, holding the back of Iruka’s knees, shoving the omega’s legs way upon either side of his chest. Suddenly Iruka’s ankles are resting on Kakashi’s shoulders, his legs in a perfect L aligned with the mattress, and Kakashi has full sweet obscene access to Iruka’s heat, and he sinks in, all the way, and Iruka shudders so crazily, so comprehensively, that it bodily shakes Kakashi, too, and he laughs a little, mindlessly astonished by how good this feels, and…

And he fucks the sounds straight out of Iruka’s throat.

He loves the sight of his cock disappearing into Iruka – all of him – and there’s a lot of him – but Iruka seems made just for him, he takes him in easy and readily as if they were made for each other.

At first, in this position, Iruka can’t tell what to do with his arms, his hands. He has them tangled up in his hair as he whimpers and gasps at every thrust, his dark eyes half-lidden and fixed on Kakashi. But then he’s clutching onto Kakashi’s arms bulging with muscle, the same ones keeping him locked back into place and keeping him so exposed and open and available. It’s not due to stress, but Iruka’s fingernails dig in like he’s trying to grapple with the reality of being so thoroughly filled. 

Eventually, though –

Iruka’s hands move to the perfect spot: his own hard cock.

It’s unbelievably arousing to see the man jerk off while getting fucked so deeply.

How Kakashi ever had any self-control before this – he has no damn idea.

It only takes Iruka’s eyelashes to flutter, his lips to part, his hand moving so fast, his body accepting so much of Kakashi over and over and over again, for –

For Kakashi’s palms to slide up, catching on the bend of the back of Iruka’s knees.  
For Kakashi’s whole world to crackle with white electricity.  
For Kakashi’s body to shudder, once, twice, three times.

He can’t think – he isn’t thinking – as he looks down at Iruka, accidentally opening the Sharingan. 

The omega’s neck is bare, revealed, inviting.

But it’s Iruka scarred expression that stirs up Kakashi’s soul.

He’s clearly just come, too. He looks high from battle, riding the rush of victory.

With his wants as alpha and man sated, Kakashi’s still recovering his senses from such exhausting sex when Iruka gazes up at him and murmurs something so soft it fades as soon as it’s spoken.

After a moment Kakashi recognizes the two words.

_“Only you.”_


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience and your wonderful feedback. I hope this makes life a little better. ♡
> 
> ___

He had no idea he could feel like this. 

This is the stuff of romance novels. The way Kakashi looks at him as they both trace scars. The way they shyly hold hands as they finally stand up from bed. The way Iruka watches Kakashi as the alpha neatly covers his Sharingan and half his face with cloth. The way they linger nervously in the foyer.

Their heights are so similar – Kakashi is only a few inches taller – but Iruka intentionally looks up through his eyelashes at the other man as they stand there. Both of them are unsure how to say goodbye. Iruka doesn’t want to tilt his face upward; he keeps his chin level. Hope is too tantalizing. He wants to fling himself in the alpha’s arms and snuggle against his scar-tapestry chest hidden below shinobi shirt and flak jacket. But, shit, that’s… that’s way too much. He should hold back. 

Likewise, Kakashi is as poised as possible, which, being jōnin ANBU, means he’s completely perfect.  


They’re reverting to their regular roles around the village.

Iruka doesn’t want that, not really, not fully, not at all. He’s not certain how to ask ‘Hey, I get that we confessed to each other earlier - what does that make us now?’ or ‘Have you ever been with anyone when hormones aren’t involved?’ Being older and more experienced, Kakashi has undoubtedly had more sexual partners. Some of them might have even been betas. Of course Iruka’s never fooled around with a beta; he knows what happens between when alphas or omegas choose betas. Satisfying short relationships abound, but betas simply can’t handle the pressure of heats or ruts, and they have no ability to pull an alpha or impress an omega, so it always ends soon. 

Still… it’s hormone-less sex.

That’s what he and Kakashi just did: no heat, no rut.

It was just them.

It’s what makes him think of romance novels. Fluffy clouds. Pink shiny hearts. Goodbye kisses.

Kakashi’s grey eye is carefully considering Iruka. The man’s contemplating something, but he’s just too slow. Summoning all the courage of his ancestors, Iruka tugs him a bit closer by the flak jacket. His first attempt at a kiss is clumsy, but they still meet lips with cloth in between. It’s brief, a quick peck. But Iruka makes sure to move over and kiss the small patch of scarred skin under Kakashi’s headband before he backs away. As he opens the apartment door behind him, he tosses one last smile at the alpha, finding him flustered, the visible parts of his face dusted with a pretty pink color.

“Visit me at work sometime,” Iruka suggests, trying not to feel giddy. Kakashi definitely likes him - He fought for Iruka! Plus, there’s no denying that the alpha keeps thinking about Iruka’s neck. That _must_ mean something, even if they don’t feel anything instinctively together. 

Ugh, and Kakashi said he loves Iruka’s sounds – those pitiful needy omega whimpers, he actually finds them attractive. Kakashi’s been restraining himself so he can hear Iruka… damn!

Iruka’s in such a pleasant daze, he really doesn’t notice Mizuki trying to say something to him. He brushes by the man, holding his paperwork to his chest, thinking of last night on an eternal loop. Fortunately, his teacher disposition is so good that his pre-genin accept the hazy dazy elated attitude. Today they’re trying out clones for the first time. It’s a hysterical tear-inducing mess, but Iruka’s abrupt upbeat attitude makes everyone feel more comfortable. When they try the jutsu out in front of each other, no one fears embarrassment, even though all but one pre-genin fails their first try. 

Unable to keep a smile off his face, Iruka shows the clone jutsu a second time – but this time –

He purposefully botches it, altering his clone’s complexion, covering him with purple polka-dots.

The pre-genin roll on the ground with laughter, and Iruka’s happy to join them, doubling over. In contrast, his clone is enormously put out by the negative attention. After crossing its arms over its chest, the replica sticks out a disappointed-frustrated tongue at him. Nevertheless, it still hangs around for the rest of the class demonstration - it’s made to be just as responsible as its creator. 

When the kids start to practice in groups, his clone leans over to him and wiggles its dark eyebrows. 

“You think it’s love?” it offers, scratching at its facial scar, breaking into a grin.

But…

But Iruka’s never thought of it like that. He’s suddenly staring at his clone, the one who looks just like him, except for those gigantic purple dots plastered all over his dark skin. The jutsu notices the heavy intensity of the look, and so it studies him searchingly, scrunching its eyebrows together. 

“Surely you thought of that?” it asks then says, a bit puzzled, “I did as soon as you made me.”

Iruka doesn’t understand how that would be – that he and his clone could be on different pages about a topic so important to their existence. Like most shinobi of his rank, he’s used clones on many missions; he’s used them to help him out of jams around the village; as a teacher, he’s conjured them to help save his ass and the lives of his risk-taking death-courting students.

Whispered rumors would have him believe that certain nin use clones in the bedroom - alone, with their partner, in groups. A scandalous bit of gossip once shocked Iruka: that an innovative local alpha appealed to omegas in Konoha with multiple clones, promising them a truly unique encounter.

The idea with clones – however a shinobi used them – was that they obeyed orders.

They understood their reason for creation, and they knew what their creator knew. Whatever they learned in their temporary life, that information ultimately returned to their maker when they ‘died.’

But…

But why would they instantly think different things?

Unless.

The clone’s bright purple spots don’t match the new red blush across its scarred cheeks. “Oh, shit,” it breathes out, blinking at the man who brought into this world. “You didn’t want to admit it.” For a second, they’re both staring at each other, equally and exactly horrified, but then the clone awkwardly laughs, raises its hand behind its ponytail, and glances away, sheepish and wincing. “But I guess that’s what just happened, huh? You literally made me so you could admit it to yourself.”

_Love?_

How could that be, though? He and Kakashi – their hormonal deadness – it means they’re missing a huge part of the experience – they lack an enormous and essential component of a relationship between alpha and omega – perhaps the defining feature of alpha-omega interaction.

He can remember way back when the Academy teacher explained the basics and sternly lectured:

_After you present as alpha or omega, you may find yourself suddenly interested or repulsed by people you know. It doesn’t matter if they’re your best friend, neighbor, or teammate. Hormones make even the most self-controlled nin behave differently. Heats and ruts are the periods when alpha and omega shinobi are at their most vulnerable but also their most powerful. Alphas will fight death to find their mate. Omegas will change the tide of battle to meet theirs. Their entire biological objective is to locate and secure a mate: it will override everything, including loyalty to the village. You must always be on guard…_

Iruka was so captivated and terrified by the lecture that he went home – alone, of course – and scanned through his photo scrapbook of his friends and questioned which one will reject him?

When he found out he was an omega, he realized he was the one who’d be rejecting people.

He could declare silently with a stare - ‘no, I don’t want you, get away.’

But not Kakashi. No, instead, within minutes of Iruka’s presentation, his epiphany was crushed by the alpha who stared blankly at him, held him tight, and jumped around like a grasshopper with a little blade of grass in its mandibles. He knew his instincts were working: he had firmly indicated ‘get the fuck away from me’ to him, just like he had with the alphas in the crowd, but…

Kakashi, indifference painted on his features, had patted Iruka down like he was a delinquent. 

The stinging shock of not being heard, of being misunderstood – his omega rejection being ignored – shit, that first heat was an absolute blur of horror and confusion and discovery and embarrassment.

So… how could they go from that to… to… love?

His clone smacks him on the back to bring him to reality. 

“The kids,” it whispered, nodding its head towards the reckless pre-genin, who predictably can’t stay unguided for too long. He and the clone effectively tag-team teach the rest of class. Every time Iruka starts to overthink things, other things, things between him and Kakashi – his clone takes over, sometimes sternly, sometimes playfully. With the exception of the clone who saved him during the chūnin trials several years ago, Iruka has never felt more grateful to a jutsu of his own image. 

The chakra strain becomes a little too much after the kids head home. When the clone notices its power waning, the purple-dotted Iruka-sensei gives him an encompassing embrace and stresses, whispering into his ear, “He _loves_ the sounds you make. Because he _loves_ you.” Then it reaches back and yanks Iruka’s very real ponytail, painful, rough, reminiscent of playground antics. Making a displeased face at its creator, the clone declares shortly, “Don’t be so dense.”

Then it disperses. 

Iruka sits at his desk, running through its memories.

How strange to see himself become lost in thought… ah, his clone observed him with such worry.

If he and Kakashi were together, tried to be sex partners, it would be like being with a beta. But relationships with betas are short and often end badly when the alpha or omega goes in search of their mate. Iruka knows that. He’s seen it over and over again since he was a boy. Ideas of love belong to three pairings: (1) omega-alpha, (2) beta-beta, and (3) omega/alpha-omega/alpha/beta, but (3) is always, _always_ fanciful and fleeting. It makes up the material for angsty dramas, the fodder for gut-wrenching novels, the fuel for heart-breaking hearsay. 

He knows the legend of an alpha and a beta so in love that they abandoned the village. They became missing nin and ventured out into the wilderness, living on top of a high mountain so the alpha would never be tempted by omega pheromones or a passing omega’s heat. The story went that the beta withstood ruts like no other beta in existence. Some even believed the beta was intersex… 

Certainly he knows omegas who fooled with omegas and alphas who enjoyed other alphas, but those were chance encounters, rough play, mission sex, interim enjoyment, that sort of thing. Inevitably, omegas break other omegas, and alphas fight other alphas, so the relationships naturally dies out.

… would he and Kakashi have to live on a God damn mountain?

At the panicked thought – a tremendous **B O O M** on his classroom door!

Going for his kunai, Iruka jumps out of his chair, but he stops mid-lunge as he sees the truly bizarre trio of people strolling into the room. 

There’s Kakashi at the far back, but the other two –

In a split second, he recognizes the bright, spandex-clad creature: that’s Maito Gai. The Green Beast of Konoha is so blindingly distinctive that it takes no conscious thought to identify him in a flash. His bushy brows and brilliant grin – his shining bowl-cut – his crazy-tight clothing – his overwhelming confidence – oh, yeah, that’s Maito Gai - no double-take needed.

The other man, though, that takes a lot of brainpower, and, while Iruka’s brain is so messed up right now, something suggests the name _Tenzo_ , and whispers soon after, _ANBU_. He’s not sure why he knows that, but then again, it’s easy to figure out the village ANBU when there are skilled young jōnin who never go to the mission desk but often walk along Konoha’s streets. 

It’s easy to follow the two shinobi’s gazes: they are both intensely focused on Iruka.

He’s blushing like a maiden under the scrutiny. 

“Iruka-sensei!” Gai calls out like they’ve been friends for two thousand years. He’s suddenly across the classroom and pulling Iruka back towards the door. “We are here to pick you up for DINNER!”

Looking amused, Tenzo hangs back with Kakashi, who is a blank canvas, a walking void. He seems to be going along for the ride, pivoting in his stride wherever Gai directs them. Similarly, out of the corner of his eye, Iruka can see Tenzo doing the same, and, holy shit, he’s never wanted to kill two jōnin at once before. But there’s no protesting, not when Gai’s in his ear, chattering away about what E N D L E S S - G O O D Iruka-sensei does for Konoha working late hours at the Academy.

Somehow, they’re at a restaurant, Tenzo’s ordering sake, Kakashi’s sitting beside him, Gai’s halfway across the table holding Iruka’s hands in his own and gushing waterfalls of compliments his way. It seems like no time at all before the ramen is served, and the sake bottle’s mostly empty, and Kakashi lifts up his arm and waves a gloved hand at the bartender, and then there’s another bottle at the table. 

Soon Tenzo’s red in the face, he’s smiling like a cat after catching a chipmunk, his dark almond eyes sliding over to Kakashi and his elbow bumping into Gai’s side and his words start spilling out.

The two oddball jōnin are trading stories about Kakashi – impressive, profound stories – a sudden shocking substitution jutsu saving the day! – an electric Chidori catching an assassin sent after the Hokage!! – a perfect use of his eight ninken, tracking down a lost little girl, reassuring her, even though he really hates children, well not hates, just doesn’t get them, he’s not a sensei, but you are, Iruka-sensei, such a smart good person you are, teaching kids, I R U K A – S E N S E I ! ! !

Thank God for alcohol.

Iruka’s wasted before he can tell what’s happened. This is just so fucking awkward, he doesn’t stop to think about restraint, he just accepts the cups offered and keeps accepting them until – until –

Out of sight, Kakashi puts a gentle gloved hand on the very edge of Iruka’s knee.

The world spinning, Iruka looks over at him… realizes he hasn’t looked at Kakashi in a long time.

The alpha is a bit amused as he returns the stare. His eye-smile is obvious, probably matches an unseen smile on his lips and a pleasant crinkle of the secret Sharingan. He doesn’t seem to be drunk, but, oh, shit, Iruka is - he really, really is. So are Gai and Tenzo, who appear in such high spirits that they haven’t particularly noticed Iruka becoming distracted from their flattery-fest of their friend.

Both betas… they’re both betas.

Not Kakashi. He’s an alpha. Iruka knows that. He’s seen it. He’s felt it.

_In his own way – he’s felt it._

He slides his hand over Kakashi’s, squeezing. His mouth feels dry, looking at alpha so close by.

“Thanks for the fun, guys,” Kakashi announces, sounding unhurried, unbothered. “We’ll see you around.” In a clever gentlemanly move, he stands, taking Iruka with him, their hands still together.

They’re outside: the cool air is such a relief on his hot face, his deep scar. Unable to walk well or much at all, Iruka leans heavily on Kakashi, who seems nonplussed by the extra weight, balancing them both without issue. He’s so nice like that. Such a protector, such a splendid hero. Ugh. It’s just – it’s just so wild that the alpha’s arm is around Iruka’s waist. He’s so warm, like a fireplace in snowy wintertime. No, he’s like the sun shining bright, golden, summery. His grey eye is glorious. 

He reaches up for Kakashi’s mask, his fingers curling into the cloth. 

They’re in an alleyway an instant later, the mask catching on Kakashi’s chin, Iruka’s threading his fingers through the alpha’s hair, and they’re kissing, dizzy, heat rising off their skin in the darkness.

Apparently Kakashi _had_ been drinking: his mouth tastes like sake. Iruka likes the taste, chases it, his tongue pursuing the hint of liquor; Kakashi backs up, collapses against the building. He’s searching under the alpha’s jacket and shirt, finding hard muscle flexing at his persistent touch. His cock is furious with him, wants more hard contact with Kakashi’s, but he can’t think it through. 

Instead, he’s wondering where they are, whose apartment they’re closer to, if Kakashi can Flicker them there –

Then –

Ah, then.

Kakashi tightens all over: it’s like molten metal snapping into a stiff sword. The effect is so intensely surprising, Iruka pulls away, his shinobi training dissolving intoxication. His senses force fiercely through dullness. He notices the problem two seconds after Kakashi’s turned into hard steel.

It’s an omega. 

She’s on her balcony, smoking a cigarette. Her hair is sweat-soaked, her skin is glittery-bright. The only thing covering her generous curves is a semi-sheer cream-colored robe. So, her body shows.

Her heat shows.

Iruka can recognize an omega in heat: _he hates that look on himself._

She’s exhausted, close to the end. The hormone-blush on her face brightens with each inhale of the cigarette. Her eyes are raised upwards towards the full moon, like she’s thinking about flying away.

Kakashi’s staring at her.

Iruka burns so hot, his vision goes white.

He grabs Kakashi’s wrist and _**drags**_ the alpha away. There’s no stopping now, Iruka thinks that they should just leave Konoha, they should ascend a mountain and live there together alone and alone together and God damn it God damn it God damn it God damn it.

He practically throws Kakashi down an alleyway, then buries his scarred face in his shaking hands.

Shit, what were they thinking!

They can’t be together – they can’t do _that_ together.

Iruka startles when Kakashi seizes the shoulders of his flak jacket. Staring at him now, he only then realizes his vision’s blurry, there’s tears filling his eyes clouding his view of the other man.

An alpha. 

The alpha.

_This man is my alpha._

Oh - how embarrassing! No. No, he’s not. He’s obviously not!

But.

Kakashi’s grey gaze is like a dagger – it plunges deep into Iruka’s skull. 

They’re both jittery, but Kakashi’s the first one to control his tremor, turning smooth as silk. ANBU and jōnin instruction set him straight: the look that falls over Kakashi is one of combat readiness. 

His voice is dark and rumbles down Iruka like an avalanche.

“Iruka, listen to me.”

But.

But no.

Fear flames through Iruka, the Nine-Tailed Beast’s destructive fire clawing at him once again, killing all the remaining good in his life. They can’t be together – this was so stupid, to dream like this – bedroom confessions! – goodbye kisses! – what the fuck were they thinking! – they can’t attract each other – this is farce – this is fucking unnatural – it’s unnatural fucking – it’s – 

“You’re going to leave me,” Iruka says aloud, the words hollow.

He can feel Kakashi’s gloved hands crush through his jacket and clench into his bones.

Although his gaze is lost somewhere else, he knows Kakashi’s close, very close, because the alpha’s breath caresses his scar when he stresses, insistent, incessant, “No, I’m not. Look at me.”

Iruka can’t control an expression he knows must be pitiful.

Hot tears conquer his scar, his cheeks.

Kakashi’s bare face is right there beside his. His grey eye looks so pained seeing Iruka’s sorrow. His Sharingan is vivid red with strange black dots, his Konoha headband pushed up high into silver hair.

As his fingertips brush over Iruka’s tears, he looks into Iruka’s eyes and declares, careful, very quiet, “I want to try bonding with you.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay - life is as complex as chaos, isn't it?
> 
> I hope you enjoy... we're nearing the finale. ♡
> 
> I would love to hear from you. Your thoughts matter so much to me!
> 
> ___

Obito rushes through the woods, their kunai collide. Rin’s broken ribs scratch his arm from all sides. Minato’s blue eyes flash, Kushina laughs loudly. His father lays so still on the floor. Gai crumbles in the chūnin trials. Tenzo’s shy glance at him in the ANBU locker room. Iruka’s staring at him. 

_Iruka’s staring at him, not saying a thing._

Kakashi has so many regrets: he just wants to relax, but that was never his fate. His hostile attitude worsened through the years until ANBU service seemed to be his punishment, his penance. In the darkest parts of night, when he’s far away from Konoha, and his rut is on the serrated edge of starting, he used to think about how he should have been kinder to Obito, how Rin tried so hard. Neither of them presented before their deaths… they were too young… And his father never knew that he was an alpha, just like him… because he embraced death first, leaving Kakashi by himself.

He doesn’t want an omega. He doesn’t want to be an alpha. 

He wants to go back, do everything over again. 

Be better to his senseis, his teammates. Spend time with his father, listen to him, really listen to him. Not hurt Gai so badly at the chūnin trials. Tell Tenzo sooner that the two of them, they’ll never…

Time travel, though… there’s no jutsu for that. 

Instead, the present permeates his vision, his unscarred eye. The only thing he can see is Iruka staring at him, not saying a thing, and Kakashi wonders way in the back of his head when he’ll step away from the omega and leave him alone, but that’s what Iruka fears most, he just said as much.

So Kakashi holds onto the man, trying to ignore the horror of seeing Iruka’s weeping.

The omega is so beautiful in his despondency… it’s heartbreaking. His dark eyes stay on Kakashi, never moving, the tears ever flowing. Iruka’s drunk on sake, his scarred cheeks flushed rosy-red, but shinobi restraint runs through him, keeping him alert and wary of what’s being suggested. 

He looked _furious_ when that omega caught in heat stepped out on her balcony.

It was so quick – but still. 

For a second, Iruka flared killing intent. 

Not at Kakashi, but at the woman, the other omega.

… would Iruka fight another omega for him? It was not unheard of, omegas exchanging blows, but an omega hurting another over an alpha? Getting rid of the competition? It is rare, very rare. … Is Iruka really the omega here? Oddly, Kakashi has felt a bit like an omega, being fussed over while injured, being pursued during his rut, but then again, he could admit he is doing the stereotypical alpha gesture, putting his pride on the line, weakly wanting to be considered as an acceptable mate. 

This… this whole thing… unbelievable.

But he wants it. This unnatural thing. He wants Iruka. Even if he’s just now realizing it, recognizing the truth, apparently it’s become obvious to everyone else, including Gai and Tenzo. They’d both noticed something – maybe a slight smile, a distracted look back towards Iruka’s apartment, he isn’t sure. At first, Kakashi ignored their questions, but then they’d dogged him worse than ever before.

Ah, their goodbye kiss at the door, the one Iruka initiated… it was straight out of a romance novel.

Maybe he was acting ditzy, daydreaming.

With his hands in his pockets and his gaze lifted skyward, Kakashi had privately enjoyed saying he was seeing someone. When Gai and Tenzo demanded more information, each in their own way, he fought back a sudden smile, one of silly satisfaction, something so foreign he barely registered it.

Of course it was Gai who struck a dynamic pose and shouted in the middle of the village, “We must meet him rightaway!” However, surprise had pleasantly spread through Kakashi when Tenzo added, his expression full of interest in the unfolding situation, “Yes, all of us should have dinner tonight.”

They’d met Iruka… the only omega Kakashi has ever wanted.

Finally, the very omega in question takes in a shaky breath, before he asks in a pained whisper: 

_“What if nothing happens?”_

… it hurts like a bone breaking in half. He doesn’t want to think about it: if he bites Iruka’s neck, and nothing changes, if they’re the same abnormal state where they can’t sense each other, if the act is like biting a beta, if they end up as unbonded as they are right now in this dark dizzying alleyway. 

No.

No, he has to think differently –

So, he says back –

_“What if something does?”_

Iruka blinks slowly as if the possibility has never dawned on him. Swallowing down tension, the omega looks back and forth between Kakashi’s eye and the Sharingan, visibly thinking through the proposal. His shoulders stop trembling under Kakashi’s gloved hands; his gaze dries up, brightens. 

It’s so glorious that Kakashi feels high from a fight.

But Iruka plays it demure, glancing down and away at the same time that he steals Kakashi’s hand and holds it in his own. “Walk me home,” he orders, his voice quiet. The air feels different, there’s been an obvious shift between them, it makes Kakashi’s heart pound like a percussion drum. He obeys without question, without pause. Undeniably, they’d enjoyed kissing just minutes earlier, but now he thinks there’s never been anything more fulfilling in his entire life than holding Iruka’s hand.

Suddenly, thanks to an intoxicated understanding of time, they’re at Iruka’s apartment door. They’re close, very close: Kakashi can see down the few inches between them, he can count all of Iruka’s dark pretty eyelashes. It doesn’t occur to him that this is an omega, that he’s an alpha, he just –

He just wants –

He likes –

He really likes –

Gently lifting Iruka’s chin with one finger, Kakashi meets the man’s gaze, having closed the Sharingan long ago. They’re looking at each other supernaturally long, the silent exchange smoldering like hot humid summertime. He knows normally with a look like this, they would soon be fucking, because one of them was in heat or in rut, but they’re both hormonally sober right now. 

This is just… them.

The two of them.

He initiates this farewell kiss. It’s slow and sweet. Iruka melts into it.

They pull away, still looking at each other. Then Iruka opens the door behind him, and he slinks inside, a soft smile on his beautiful face, and his blush through his scar… it makes Kakashi feel alive.

The next few weeks fly by – he literally can no longer tell time. The world’s been like that sometimes, when he’s depressed and drags himself through the motions, accepting mission scrolls and defending Konoha with his bones and body and brains. Yet this time’s different. Motivation arrives in the form of courting – something they haven’t talked about, something he could never confess aloud – but he’s doing it, dedicated and attentive, anticipating Iruka’s every need and want.

The obvious thing is to prepare lunches, which Kakashi does every day, exploring bento box options in his spare time. His ANBU partner – she wonders what the hell is going on - but catches on when Kakashi gleefully picks up wild salmon from a stream, eye-smiling the rest of their defense patrol. Now, with his long courtship of the omega, Iruka never goes hungry for breakfast, lunch, dinner. Secretly, Kakashi notices that Iruka’s put on a little weight, but no matter, he likes the man.

He really likes the man.

Plus, they’ve started something else, something that helps the extra pounds.

They’re sparring on the training grounds, where Kakashi found Iruka in rut and they first said aloud the very incredible thing, that there was something going on between them, something exceptional.

It’s fun, seeing what the chūnin can do. Of course, he’s not Gai nor Tenzo. Certainly, he’s not classed for jōnin or ANBU, but Kakashi doesn’t want more of those - he wants Iruka Umino, here, now, like this. They both enjoy sparring, too. It’s great entertainment after Academy shifts and in-between patrols for trespassing alphas. Fortunately, Iruka doesn’t mind that Kakashi limits himself, sometimes only using one hand or no hands, sometimes refusing to use ninjutsu or genjutsu. 

Undoubtedly, it’s delicious in the worst of ways when Iruka wins: he wears such a triumphant expression, and his dark delighted gaze is directed only at Kakashi, making him feel like he’s the only thing in the whole wide world.

They kiss leisurely, sweetly – never too much, never too hard.

They don’t do anything more than that.

It’s an unspoken thing between them. They’re putting a pause on sex, relying on slow-building their intimacy instead. The effect is distracting Kakashi during missions, but he also breaks alphas faster than he’s ever done in his life. He wants to get back to Iruka, wants to make him meals, wants to get his hair petted, wants to have his ass handed to him in combat. 

In the thrilling blur of the two weeks, people make comments – Gai, Tenzo, his ANBU partner, all sorts of people – but Kakashi breezes by everyone, chasing Iruka wherever the omega goes. He’s easy to find, in part because Iruka’s always looking for him. They end up more than once with Kakashi gazing up at him from the street, waiting to be called inside, and Iruka hanging out his window, smiling this sappy wonderful smile that’s only for him.

Something could happen between them.

Something _is_ happening between them.

Of course, he’s violently observant of other omegas, ones close to their heat: he’s also never moved so much on rooftops and in back-alleys before. Although he wasn’t researching it, Kakashi notices one day Iruka’s doing the same thing, that he’s avoiding main streets, big crowds, alphas in general. They’re both worried about the obvious… that they’ll get drawn in by someone else, stupidly, horrifically. It’s the only thing that sharpens Kakashi’s insight, clears his thoughts like a strong wind. 

He viciously promises himself he’ll stay true to Iruka, no matter his own suffering.

And suffers he does – of pent-up sexual crazy. They play it too close, too often. Occasionally, Iruka’s straddling him on the training field, and the omega _looks_ at him, and Kakashi thinks, _We could… we should…_ but that’s against the thing they’re doing, so he wiggles out from underneath Iruka and starts the bout again, rougher, less playful, inspiring shinobi work.

Yet when he gets home – 

Kakashi has never been so cruel to his cock.

He jerks off like he doesn’t think he’ll live to see tomorrow. Every night, it’s Iruka, in every position he can imagine, ones that the omega could never physically do because it’s not humanly possible. Perhaps the best night was when they were tipsy on celebratory sake (Iruka’s survived a semester at the Academy). Iruka dances his fingers up Kakashi’s neck and something about it makes him think –

 _What if he fucked **me**_.

It is not something Kakashi’s thought about much. After all, no one has ever fucked him.

But… Iruka Umino. 

Mmm.

Kakashi’s doing his nightly routine, but his other hand strays, inebriated curiosity stirring him to strange places. He quirks an eyebrow at the ceiling, wondering at the feeling, impressed by it. There’s some experimentation with mission lubricant, meant for many different uses, including this one… The idea of Iruka, dark-eyed, dangerous, demanding – over him, atop him – pushing in, his cock so hard it fills a place within Kakashi that he’s never thought anyone would match, would fit, would be.

He squirms in his bed, squeezing his eyes shut. Thankfully, he’s absurdly talented at multi-tasking: his hands have no problem in their distinctly different tasks, both pleasuring him in their own way. 

Realizing he’s panting, but weirdly liking the sound, Kakashi wonders if Iruka’s ever thought about this… about fucking Kakashi into the sheets, making the alpha beg inside a bedroom in such a…

In such an unnatural way.

Mmm.

Oh, it’s so fucking appealing, Kakashi can’t handle it.

The next time they see each other – he’s blushing the whole damn time. Iruka’s amazed by it, can’t help but tease him; he’s curious what changed, what might have happened beyond their time together. There’s no meeting his eyes: Kakashi keeps thinking about how strong his orgasm was, and how he passed out afterwards, so completely sated that he didn’t even clean up. Waking up, covered in dry cum, that hadn’t occurred in years. He’s totally mortified by his adolescent indulgence of fantasy, something which he’s almost never experienced even when he was a much younger man.

But, oh, Iruka catches him by the waist, leans up, and kisses him.

It’s unbearable – this omega.

This man.

He pushes Iruka further; their kiss turns rough, really rough. He licks into Iruka’s mouth while groping the man’s ass, unable to hold back after such a divine but frustrating night by himself. It’s almost dissociative, now that they’re here, now that they’re together in reality – and – he – he –

“Kakashi,” Iruka moans against his mouth, sounding blissed-out. “You’re going into rut.” 

For some reason, he thinks it’s smart to reply “Yeah?” in a casual tone, and he noses Iruka’s omega collar, not the one from the time before, he’s got that in his pocket, he hate-loves that collar, but he really hates this new collar, it’s in his fucking way, again, they’re always in his fucking way, he can just barely, he can just barely smell Iruka, this close, during rut, it’s his keen sense of smell, he got it from his mother’s side of the family, he’s as good as the Inuzuka, maybe better, Iruka’s so subtle, it’s like chasing something through the darkness, but Kakashi’s there, in the abyss, in the void, navigating, seeking, striving –

“Hey, maybe you could… we could… try?”

His memory’s failing him, the Sharingan is shit, he’s practically gnawing at Iruka’s collar when it hits him what the omega’s just said, and then he’s staring at the man, saying nothing, shocked, stunned.

Iruka’s blushing – oh - he’s blushing so much.

They’re –

Where are they? What have they been -

They’ve been sparring. Sweat. Exertion. The elusive omega scent coming off Iruka Umino. They’re both heavily flushed from fighting - even though Kakashi had kept his right hand behind his back the whole time - and he remembers he promised not to use any ninjutsu during this session. Still, Iruka’s gotten him good a few times, he feels sore and pained in his abdomen and shoulder where Iruka smashed into him with foot and fist. He can tell that he’s not gone easy on the chūnin, either.

His mask is down, caught on his chin. Maybe from kissing? Definitely from nibbling at the collar.

His lips are parted in surprise; he’s staring at Iruka, unable to speak.

Iruka turns all coy, like he’s never done before – fluttering eyelashes, turning his shoulder, glancing over at Kakashi all sultry like it’s a honeypot mission and Kakashi is some stupid civilian prey thing.

“Only if you want to,” the omega says softly, and Kakashi breaks a toe he moves so quickly to seize the other man by the shoulders, and he’s got the man suddenly swooning in his arms, and he speaks everything inside him, inside his heart, inside his soul, his alpha identity at once so insignificant and also of the highest most wildest importance - 

“Iruka…” he murmurs, so very obsessed with the man in his arms, “it would be my honor.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been too long, but know I've always thought of you. I've missed you. Treat yourself well. Be good to other people. Be like Kakashi: wear a mask and look beautiful doing it.
> 
> As always, please let me know what you think... I want to hear from you!
> 
> Also, I want to add your comments from Chapter 19 made my life so much better, and the days actually bearable, and writing this chapter possible. You will never know how much your words mean to me, but thank you so much for spending your time reading this story. I'm so glad you're alive.  
> 
> 
> ____

He’s been dreaming about fucking Kakashi.

The first time it happens, Iruka wakes up, his face burning red, his hand already on his cock. The feeling is so overwhelming… It really seems like Kakashi had been there with him – or rather, had been underneath him. But, instead, Iruka is alone with the amazing image of the alpha’s pale form against dark bedsheets, his ass up high, his thighs spread open. It had never occurred to him to fantasize about fucking Kakashi, but the image is so real, so inspiring, that… well, it’s easy to fuck his fist thinking about it.

It keeps happening – the dream of sinking into Kakashi, making the man whimper like an omega.

The rut-flush on the alpha’s cheeks, that familiar fixated look in his grey eye – all that – just under Iruka, sprawled spread-eagle across the bed. Twisting hips, clinging to Iruka’s bedsheets, biting his pink bottom lip, torturing that beauty mark. Oh, God - Iruka can’t believe his mind can conjure such filthy imagery, but every other night, there it is, increasingly more defined, like a practice jutsu finally coalescing into the real thing. He tries to deny how much it turns him on – because, fuck, that’s not fair, they are never going to do _that!_ No alpha alive wants _to do that!_

Damn his dream, anyway. The real Kakashi is gorgeous: he’s more than enough for Iruka. They’ve been careful these past two weeks, both of them mimicking the way that betas court one another without even discussing it once. It’s secretly flattering to have such an impressive figure show up repeatedly at work. The Academy is in a constant tizzy about the elite alpha waiting outside for Iruka every day. For all his cool reclusive behavior, Kakashi has now become rather flamboyant about his interest. He’s literally single-eyed in his devotion; it makes Iruka so warm and fuzzy it’s just freaky.

The ugly burn of seeing Kakashi turn towards that other omega in heat – the woman on the balcony the night they went out drinking with Gai and Tenzo – the burn slowly starts to heal. The best balm is when Kakashi longingly gazes up at Iruka’s window, waiting to be called up, and Iruka leans against the frame, smiling down at him. Through their days together, he never manages to sense the man very well as a shinobi considering Kakashi is jōnin and ANBU. 

As always, they don’t register each other hormonally. 

But, somehow… it doesn’t seem to matter. 

Whenever Iruka feels lonely, and he looks around, wanting his person… Kakashi is always there. They separate, of course, mostly at night, since they’re not seeking out each other for sex anymore. 

That might explain the dreams of him fucking Kakashi _until the alpha is totally delirious, begging for more._

Fortunately, Iruka contains his outrageous behavior and does not let on that he’s becoming a total weirdo pervert. Admittedly, though, there are moments where it almost comes out. Those times usually happen during sparring, when on the rare occasion he gets the drop on Kakashi and he ends up atop the alpha. There’s no stopping his happy hind-brain into thinking, _Oh, this is like those dreams! We should! We could!_ , but fortunately Kakashi always escapes just in time, resuming their bout in short order and reintroducing purpose to their training. He thanks God every time that Kakashi doesn’t want to linger after sparring, that he never asks to stay over. He worries he would end up doing something to the man. Bewilderingly, awfully, Iruka recognizes in his deepest most shameful self that he’s becoming stupid and perverse during their sweet courtship. 

It’s…

It’s embarrassing. He feels aggressive. He _is_ aggressive. There’s no omega passivity left in him, waiting, watching, deciding; it’s all the stuff of alphas, imploring, appealing, suggesting. The night that they celebrate Iruka’s survival at the Academy, his one semester anniversary, the sake seems way too strong. He’s drunk, he’s horny, Kakashi is beautiful, he’s strong, they should be together, now, forever, always, tonight, right this second, right now, right now, right now.

He runs his fingers up Kakashi’s neck, thinking absently about biting the alpha.

The jōnin looks at him with a curious grey eye… and says nothing.

It’s just enough for Iruka who is fast becoming a dirty bitch. When Kakashi finally leaves after a lovely farewell kiss, Iruka closes the door and fumbles getting his pants down. His brain is lewd, he feels drunk – not just on the sake, but on sex, on want, on need. He wants something tighter and warmer than his palm and fingers on his cock, he just can’t stop thinking about fucking Kakashi, about making him moan, about biting him deep and rough on his pretty pale neck.

He is haunted: Kakashi is haunting him.

The mysterious wonderful thing happens not too long after, when the alpha shows up for sparring. He averts his single-eyed gaze and he’s blushing, and Iruka loves everything about it. Since they first met a year ago, he’s been chasing the pink in Kakashi’s cheeks, he’s always been looking for that shine in his grey eye that means he’s lost indifference and gained great interest. 

There it is.

Kakashi looks so… smitten.

They suddenly end up kissing, and, oh, Kakashi’s forceful again, he’s holding onto Iruka so firmly, he’s turning Iruka’s world upside down, he’s so beautiful, he’s strong, he’s going into rut again, right here, right now. The man yet again proves he’s an alpha - not by a hormonal draw in the air - not by hormones wickedly wrecking Iruka’s omega brain – but by obsessively nosing Iruka’s collar like he’s trying to feel out the fine intricate edges of a jutsu. There are those dreams, there’s this thing between them, this unnatural delicious thing, and Iruka abruptly hears himself breathe out, clutching onto the alpha before him, “Hey, maybe you could… we could… try?”

In response, Kakashi’s teeth sink into Iruka’s collar.

He can feel the bite shake the hard leather. _It makes him shiver._

Then Kakashi seems to hear him, really hear him. After pulling away some, the alpha stares at him in flushed surprise as his dark blue mask clings to his throat. He looks like he’s desperately trying to understand Iruka’s proposal, but it’s not reaching the rational shinobi-smart part of his brain, which shows how far gone the man has become in this, the early stage of his rut. But maybe, even though they don’t feel anything towards each other… maybe there is…

Maybe there _is_ something happening between them?

“Only if you want to,” Iruka says softly, turning slightly away, feeling pained he’s so hopeful. 

It certainly feels like something when Kakashi moves so swiftly Iruka literally loses track of him – and then he’s swept backward in a swooning motion as the jōnin effortlessly holds him mid-air. 

“Iruka… it would be my honor,” the man replies with truth and trust in each and every word.

They’re suddenly by a training post, one of the thick giant wooden beams designed to survive even the highest level taijutsu. There’s a frantic clumsy quality to how they handle each other, but Iruka likes it, he really likes it, and obviously so does Kakashi, who becomes ever more reckless as his rut wrestles away his restraint. Instead of the careful distance of their courtship, Kakashi is shamelessly obsessed with Iruka’s body, much more than he has ever been before.

He’s groping Iruka with jōnin-level strength, but God, it feels good, so so good. 

They collapse against the training post, they’re entangled on the ground pressed against it.

Kakashi can’t stop attacking Iruka’s omega collar, like he doesn’t quite understand how to open it.

Awkward hysterical laughter tries to fly out of Iruka in response, but then he swims in dark powerful arousal as Kakashi lifts up and kisses Iruka’s exposed neck with desperate, hopeless desire. His grey eye catches Iruka’s shaky gaze: he’s silently pleading for help, he so wants to bond them… Feeling wildly overheated, Iruka undoes the metal clasp at the hollow of his throat, brushing against Kakashi’s scarred cheek as he does so. They’re so intertwined… Kakashi is so close to him, he’s seemingly unwilling and unable to leave Iruka even for a sliver of a millisecond. 

They’ve been nude to each other before. He’s been collarless with Kakashi before.

But now –

Ah, fuck.

Panic chokes him for a second: what if this doesn’t work? What will they do? He’s not going on long-distance missions, he’s got his job at the Academy, he’s beginning to serve the mission desk. With all his skills and the Sharingan, Kakashi’s always going to be a prize for Konoha, sent on patrols, made to ward off enemies to the village, ordered to assassinate faraway men and women. They don’t have to meet in Konoha, they’re on different schedules, they live in different worlds. 

Will they –

Will they just disappear from each other’s lives if this doesn’t work?

Iruka realizes that this might be their last time together like he’s just noticed he’s been poisoned.

No. Fuck that.

He seizes Kakashi by the back of his head, grips that silver hair, and kisses the alpha so thoroughly that he can taste the man’s dizzy hunger and anxious yearning. His hand is in between Kakashi’s thighs, forcing inside the man’s pants, feeling out that hard perfection. Fuck, he wants the Sharingan, he wants a photographic memory, he can’t ever forget this, ever, ever. 

Focus. 

Fuck! 

FOCUS!

But Kakashi moves down, starts to lick the side of his neck, and Iruka can’t hormonally sense him as an alpha, but his brain isn’t so fucking stupid that he doesn’t identify the man as one, so he hopes for –

He wants –

Ugh, God.

He wants to be bitten.

Yet a strange sloppy hesitation has overcome Kakashi: he’s fixated on running his tongue along Iruka’s jugular vein, pressing down on the muscles of his throat. His hands have found both of Iruka’s shoulders, he’s keeping Iruka shoved hard against the training post, he seems totally unaware of Iruka’s fearfully intense attention to his rut-hard cock still trapped in his shinobi blues. His use of strength is terrifying – and admirable – and arousing – and Iruka squirms against the wood, his hand shuddering on Kakashi’s cock, enjoying with sick relief how much Kakashi really is an alpha, God he’s such an alpha, he could be Iruka’s alpha, he _is_ Iruka’s alpha –

_“Kakashi, please.”_

A single glance is shared between them.

Perhaps Kakashi’s thinking the same thing…

That this might not work. That they’ve never discussed what would happen if… if it fails.

Sounding as if he’s not in rut, Kakashi is impossibly coherent as he says in a voice still and certain:

“I love you, Iruka.”

His eyes flutter, and he almost bursts into tears, but Iruka holds himself in check, and he nods, swallowing down every fear in existence with those four words, trying to stay here in the present, not remember how alone he felt when his parents died, nor that it could happen to him again…

Amazingly, the alpha needs no verbal response, and he doesn’t wait around for one.

Instead he –

He leans down and –

_He bites Iruka._

It’s painful, how the two curved lines of teeth sink ever deeper into his muscle. The angle’s awkward, Kakashi’s on his knees, pressing Iruka forward into his sweaty shinobi shirt, and he’s biting directly over Iruka’s spine, under his limp ponytail soaked from their sparring session.

Nghhh. Iruka – he’s shaking all over, iridescent sparkling panic screaming straight through him, woozy nausea rolling his head in a circle, circling, circling around – he’s trying to hold onto – but he can’t – he feels -

Lightning soars up his right arm, the thousand blood vessels of his limb as blooming bold and brilliant as the great trees outside the village with their many outstretched arms. His left hand automatically snaps over to his elbow, trying to stabilize the disordered clusterfuck of electricity. It’s out of control, the excitement and agony of the sensation, and Iruka tries to look at his arm, but he’s so nauseous and the world’s still spinning swift and careless. His body feels like it’s a hundred million pounds heavier, weighed down to the ground – God, he’s so exhausted, fucking hell, he wants to sleep until the sun swallows up the planet and then his ashes will need a nap, too.

He can’t –

He can’t feel Kakashi against him anymore.

There’s a confusing constant twitch in his left eye, but he can’t figure out to touch his face while still holding onto his lightning-aching arm. He tries to rub his face against the rounded edge of his shoulder, but he finds when the two make contact, his eye is weeping profusely, he’s crying – 

But why just out of that one eye?

There’s cool sweet springtime relief when the left eye closes shut.

His body answers happily, feeling just a little less fucked over every passing second.

Still, he’s dealing with this insane arm, its blue-white lightning pain crashing up and down the five nerves of the limb, starting at his fingertips shaking in the dirt and radiating way back to his spine, where they bundle up like tired wet kittens huddling for shelter in a rainstorm. The pain is rainbow kaleidoscopic: he can practically taste the colors, as well as a dozen new nameless ones. 

Shit. Shit. Where is –

He tries – and he fails at first, and again a second time – but the third time – he gets it, he finally –

He opens only his right eye and looks for Kakashi on the training field. 

The jōnin – the alpha – the man is – he’s – 

Kakashi Hatake is standing about ten feet away, looking distressed, touching his unscarred cheek with one half-gloved hand, staring at the ground by his feet like it’s a scroll sent by the gods. He appears as the same as he always does around the village: beautiful silver hair, long lean body, heavy training gear. But there’s something wrong with the man, something obviously disturbingly wrong, like how he’s holding himself straight and light, how he seems so distracted.

As the sparkly crazy continues to crackle in Iruka’s arm, he tries to stand, but fuck, his body is anguished and overburdened and did sparring really ruin him this much? Why do all his bones feel fractured and healed over twenty times? Why are his muscles singing bright high soprano? What is going on with his God damn left eye? It’s burning up to his brain – he can feel the optic nerve sore and radiating old, ancient pain – and he fights the natural instinct to open it and look around –

But he stops moving when he sees just what the other man is doing, standing there, alone.

Kakashi draws his bare fingertips across his own face, tracing a long ceaseless line from one side of his cheek… over his pale nose… all the way to where his knife scar crashes down the left side.

It’s a strange movement… since there’s nothing where he touches… not a mark nor a bruise.

Confusion pours through the jōnin’s single-eyed gaze as he unsteadily draws up his hand to his face.

It’s obvious what the motion means, what Kakashi is trying to do in a complete daze.

He’s checking for blood.

He slowly turns his fingers, finding nothing… and then tries again, touching the same line as before.

Iruka knows that particular line… he’s knows it because he’s seen it the last sixteen years in mirrors and rain puddles and store windows and on the face of every one of his shadow clones. 

_That’s where Iruka’s skin was sliced open when he was two years old._

_That’s where Iruka himself has a facial scar._

Seeing Kakashi look so unsettled, so lost… he feels a protective surge, pulls courage from the pit of his stomach, readies himself for a bloody mangled massacre of physical pain, and -

Iruka opens his left eye.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience. In these whirlwind times, I've always desperately sought a moment to write. I hope you enjoy this update. Your comments sustain me and have made life sweeter even when seemingly everything is difficult. I am so grateful to you. I'm thrilled you're alive. Thank you, truly, for existing and reading. I would love to hear from you.
> 
> ____

There’s something interesting-wrong happening. Something that Kakashi can’t quite name, and he has had many, many experiences, so this has to be an anomaly, an aberration. His face echoes an old familiar pain, when his nerve was cut open by a knife during the war, more than ten years ago and twenty minutes before Obito was crushed to death. So… this is nerve pain, a long severed line in his face. But it’s going horizontal across his face, not downward, and Kakashi keeps touching it, trying to understand. His fingertips don’t have blood on them, but they should. 

Tremendous. Weird. Radiating. Pain.

Hmm. Hm.

In contrast, though, the rest of his body feels shiny, shiny and new. His brain is sparkly, alert. The nerve pain is a little distracting, but his sensations all seem different, unnaturally different. This is not his rut. He is still in rut… he thinks he’s still in rut. It’s difficult to tell. He’s never felt this _good_ in a rut: he feels like he could fight the Hokage and win. Not just an alpha, but a creature at his best, victory within reach, vibrant and bright. 

Of course, he’s still trying to run through his memories to piece together what this actually is – what he’s experiencing – but it’s odd, because his body just feels – 

Ah. Unbroken.

He feels unbroken. Is this what being mated feels like? Lively? Young? His muscles never sore? His nerves radiant and glistening sunlight? His bones feel strong, maybe not as solid or fortified as usual, but like – 

Like he’s never broken them? 

But Kakashi has broken almost every bone in his body. His has been a tough life, ever since he was very young. The day after he found his father’s dead body in their house, Kakashi punched a tree in the Forest of Death, and he slowly looked down at his mangled hand, alone in the woods. Then, he wept into, onto his broken fingers. Each one of them were as broken as his heart, so many shattered little fragments of bone and heart and self.

His face fucking hurts, though. Like how he remembers from the knife, right before Obito died –

He touches the line in his cheeks again, looks down at his fingers. 

No blood.

But there was blood back then, and there should be blood now. 

Shouldn’t there be? He feels a wound there. A scar? 

He repeats the action over and over again. Defying the pain in his face, his body feels so jubilant, like he could fly across Konoha with wide-open wings, light as a bird. He doesn’t understand the contrast. How could he have this one wound, the one that’s not a wound, when the rest of his physical form feels so happy and young and delighted? It’s confusing, confounding, and he’s staring at his hand again, touching the tips together, bewildered because his nerve endings in his fingers are working very well, instead of deadened from overuse, but he can see them right now, they’re physically calloused like always, except they feel new?

No blood on his fingers. How - ?

Someone is nearby, right beside him.

It makes him stiffen full-body, which happens easier than usual. Astonishment floods Kakashi as he nearly leaps off the fucking ground, his body is so responsive to his request to move at the proximate threat. He hasn’t felt this alert in a thousand years – perhaps never in his life. His nerves are weeping in his face, sliced fully across his nose, but the rest of him is so happily perky.

Kakashi is all the more thrown as he looks up at Iruka Umino standing in front of him. The omega is wincing his left eye closed. He’s clutching his right arm in a disturbingly familiar fashion. 

Seeing the other man’s stance, Kakashi lowers his fingers from his own unbloody, half-scarred face. 

_Ah, I see._

The omega’s wince is familiar. Kakashi used to do that early on, when the Sharingan first ached. Chakra had drained out of his pathways so fast that he could taste bile rolling up his esophagus into his mouth. He eventually learned to crease his eyelid over the dōjutsu, controlling his body’s rejection of Obito’s gift. But to see Iruka doing it – to see it so mirrored on another man… 

Seeing those pretty brown fingers also digging hard into the shinobi blue cloth of Iruka’s arm, the action desperate and pained – 

Ah… 

“Is it working?” Kakashi asked, staring at Iruka’s open left eye.

Where he, himself, has a Sharingan.

Iruka does not appear to have a Sharingan there, but he’s certainly treating the eye like it’s one.

The resulting pause seems like a millennium of silence and sorrow, of weird and worry. He’s putting the pieces together, like finding a skeleton scattered in the woods, and working to understand how they came to die out in the forest. But there’s something significant in waiting, in the slow discovery, in the long funerary process. It takes Iruka another serious moment of contemplation, then the man opens his eyelid more, stretching what looks like his usual dark eye.

Understandably, Iruka sounds strained when he finally replies in an incredulous whisper:

“This is what you feel like all the time?”

It’s stupid, but Kakashi finds himself laughing, a dark low laugh. So… it’s not normal, how he feels walking around in the world. That makes sense. His body is abused from ANBU and jōnin missions. Of course how he’s feeling right now – he’s feeling Iruka’s body - and Iruka’s body feels precious and put-together - happy, unbroken, and joyous.

So they’re sharing sensations – he and Iruka. Alpha and omega, sharing old pains. Childhood trauma. Cut nerves. Rerouted nerves into dōjutsu. Broken bones. Growing bones. 

Why, though? He’d correctly bitten Iruka on the neck, right where alpha bite omega to bond them together. That he hadn’t done wrong: he’d done research, fearing the worst, that he might do something off and further traumatize Iruka, who seemed so scared that it wouldn’t work. Of course, Kakashi’s been worried it might not work, either. If nothing happened…

Well, something _has_ happened between them.

Something… ha.

_Something unnatural, it seems._

The look of Iruka – the replicated posture of Kakashi himself in pain – it’s very distracting and very pretty in appearance. He’s frequently seen his shadow clones standing in this position, holding their arms as a Chidori sparks up in battle. They usually murder someone soon afterward, saving Kakashi’s ass, helping perpetuate his dumb existence. Ignoring the question of just-what-the-fuck-is-happening-here, Kakashi enjoys the idea of Iruka fighting someone for him. 

A few weeks ago, Iruka had sparked killing intent at the omega in heat on the balcony.

Yes, Iruka would have fought that other omega for Kakashi. Turned his arm into lightning. Terrified her away.

Pleasure curls through him, strangely satisfied that he could influence Iruka in such a way.

Suddenly, Iruka closes his not-really-a-Sharingan eye and steps closer, looking like he’s fallen entranced with what’s before him. Even though he drops his left hand from clutching his right arm, Kakashi is sure that the other man is still feeling the burn of chakra pathways opened up to electricity. There’s a slow, unsettled, tired tension in Iruka’s movement… that’s laughably recognizable, too. It’s chakra exhaustion. Poor sweet Iruka, suffering Kakashi’s old pains. 

Still, a feeling is building in his chest, like he’s been planting roses down in between his ribs, and they’re just now sprouting, the thorns tearing at the muscles, the growing roses breaking bones. 

Kakashi likes it. There’s an unfamiliar strength in it. He’s eying Iruka, feeling rather impressed with the other nin. Even faced with the complete fuckery of their situation, the chūnin is handling it like a Kage resolutely defending their village against insurmountable odds. Clearly fearlessness is woven thick through Iruka’s soul, because the omega makes it the ten feet to Kakashi, all while wracked by the sensations of Kakashi’s lifelong-wrecked body – all with a sincerely worried expression. He wants to check on his lover after all the confusion and horror of whatever-the-fuck-this-madness-is-between-them. 

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Kakashi decides to ignore the eerie slice of pain burning across his face, and he closes the distance between himself and the omega, his omega. Without thinking a thing, he seizes Iruka by the front of the man’s shirt and yanks him forward.

Both of his own eyes are open; he’s amused and amazed by what he sees.

The Sharingan in his own face –

He can’t feel it.

What he can feel is a burning want so hot he feels like he’s caught in an Uchiha fireball. 

A heat. An… omega heat.

Even though he’s in rut? He _is_ in an alpha’s rut. Or… is an omega’s heat?

Iruka’s startled being pulled close, and he grabs Kakashi’s arms. They’re entangled less than a second later as Kakashi presses fully into the other man, leaning down against the omega’s strong brown jawline, and –

Before he considers what he’s doing, he’s inhaling deep, deep down into his lungs, because –

It seems impossible – but – 

Iruka smells like an alpha. He smells like an alpha. It’s not faint, it’s strong and heady. The draw of it is dizzying, like the smell of street food at a New Year’s festival. He doesn’t register it as competition, as someone to ward off or worry about. No – no, in contrast, in lovely righteous contrast, he’s obsessed with it – how he’s always been when he gets a rut-enhanced hint of Iruka Umino’s omega scent, the one that’s drawn him across training fields and into office closets. 

All of a sudden, Kakashi finds himself kissing Iruka’s neck, still breathing in the delicious scent, not even sure what he’s hoping for, because he’s not thinking anything, just enjoying the feel and taste and scent of his person – his omega – his alpha.

However, in his arms, Iruka has frozen up. There’s no movement from the other man. His breathing is gone stagnant; his shaking must be internal, because his body is surreally still. 

Kakashi doesn’t really care. He’s chosen his mate. This omega – or, rather – this alpha? 

Whatever Iruka is.

It’s such a perfect, enticing smell… It’s making Kakashi lose his tenuous grip on the situation.

Oh, there it goes.

Mmm. 

He’s dragging Iruka down into the dirt, he’s pawing at the front of Iruka’s pants. What a nice waiting bulge, the strong outline of a hard heavy cock, and it’ll fit so good inside him, won’t it? 

Yes, he’s gotten the attention of this alpha, he’s chosen this one. Now he’ll get what he wants from such a fine creature, and it makes so much sense to shove down his clothing, and his fingers are a bit rough, so he licks them while looking down at Iruka, who is shell-shocked like a soldier who has seen too much, but that’s quite fine, isn’t it? That’s what alphas do. They wait, they have to wait for their omega, and Kakashi’s helping his poor little alpha, so stricken, so confused. 

It’s easy to do the next part, because well – who doesn’t want to be fucked by Iruka Umino?

Unfortunately, Iruka looks increasingly distressed, and that’s not the most exciting expression, so while Kakashi is preparing himself, his hand behind himself and pressing inside, he asks casually –

“Don’t you want to fuck me?”

Apparently that is the very right thing to say, because Iruka’s not-real-Sharingan-eye opens again, and he looks brilliantly interested in what Kakashi has just inquired about, to the point that…

Remaining trapped underneath him, Iruka suddenly moves his hands to grip Kakashi’s hips. Soon he’s grinding their bodies together with jōnin-level strength which viscerally satisfies something profound within both of them. All the frustrating pain timelessly haunting Kakashi’s face, where Iruka got his skin and nerves slit open so many years ago – it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t mean a damn thing, because Iruka is enjoying being forceful with him in the most obedient beautiful way that alphas can be when omegas have chosen to accept them.

 _Yes._ It’s good, it’s gorgeous, it’s glorious. 

Though… the way that Iruka’s bare cock pushes up into him –

Oh. Well. Hell. That sort-of smarts. 

But ah – look at that expression. Mm mm mm.

Kakashi shoves all his weight down, fully connecting them, and he’s vaguely aware that he probably should not have done that, because he really doesn’t seem to be fully omega, omega-ish, omega-y?, but oh, oh God.

The most wonderful thing, disregarding the tremendous pain and very unusual feeling of fullness that he has definitely never ever felt before, is that, below him, Iruka is fixated upward, watching him, not blinking, not looking away. It’s delightful to be watched so intently. He’s usually the one – no, he’s _always_ the one staring and observing and learning and memorizing his lover. 

Now Iruka’s doing that so intensely, with such obsession. Kakashi’s blushing more and more as he realizes that the other man is continuously thrusting up into him, keeping his feet flat on the training ground dirt and lifting his hips and pressing further into Kakashi’s conflicted body. 

He should probably feel really embarrassed, but he’s actually quite thrilled with how deep Iruka seems to be reaching, like he’s fucking way up into Kakashi’s throat, and _mmm._

The stranger thing is Iruka seems to be a damn expert at this.

An expert at fucking.

Fucking alphas?

Hang on. Kakashi is an alpha, and Iruka is an omega, so just what are they -

He remembers he’s never been fucked by anyone, and Iruka must never have…

They both seem to recognize it at the same time, that this is insane, literally insane, but they are dangerously close to coming together at the same time, and so it disrupts rational thinking. 

They yet again skip over the realization for a while.

But still -

As he continues getting fucked for the first time, Kakashi furrows his brows, trying to understand why it feels like he’s also going to pass out. He wouldn’t quite understand why, except for pleasure? But… no, no, it’s chakra. This is chakra exhaustion. It’s clawing past his Iruka-feelings, his omega-feelings, the ones controlling him and saturating him so thoroughly he’s primitive and lost in his rut, his heat. It’s reaching and ringing the warning bells at the most primal base part of his brain, trying to tell him he’s going to die if he keeps this up, he will keel over and die of chakra exhaustion. 

Why, though? Why would his chakra be draining so much? He’s not doing anything –

Huh. His Sharingan. It’s been open this whole time. So it’s active. Draining. Chakra.

_Just like that, the realization repeats: this is an illusion – a hormonal trick - wait - But ugh, his cock is so hard – his whole body is so happy – he feels so filled and fulfilled._

He can barely understand through the whirling hormonal confusion, through physical pain and physical pleasure, through the roiling omega sensations and his underlying alpha rut reality, but he feels Iruka bending upward and forcing Kakashi to sit fully and firmly in his lap, the two of them deeply connected.

With his breath falling out of him erratically and his hurt-haunted face pressed against Iruka’s clothed shoulder, Kakashi can just very faintly hear Iruka… the man… his omega? his alpha?... his mate?... asking him, sounding exceedingly hopeful and also so very hopeless, “Can I bite you? It feels like I should – that maybe if I did – we would -”

“Yes,” he hears himself answer, and then Kakashi grabs at Iruka’s back, reaches up, and runs his fingers on the bloody crescent on the man’s spine, “I think it might complete the bonding, too.”

But nothing could have prepared Kakashi for having his neck bitten, nor for what came next.


End file.
